


Equilibrium

by gxlden



Category: Bleach
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Relationship Study, Slow Build, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-13 12:37:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 30,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21494416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gxlden/pseuds/gxlden
Summary: The secret is moderation, in all things — in love and hate, virtue and vice. Despite his dangerous balancing act, trying to maintain harmony between the light and dark in his life, Gin manages to preserve a calm state of mind, his trademark smile never wavering in the wake of it all. The years add up but they never seem to take a toll as he fights for both sides, for a woman he refuses to love and a man he can’t help but succumb to.The origin stories for Gin and Rangiku and for Aizen and Gin, and everything in between.
Relationships: Aizen Sousuke/Ichimaru Gin, Ichimaru Gin/Matsumoto Rangiku
Comments: 19
Kudos: 50





	1. Found

**Author's Note:**

> What follows is the story of Gin and Rangiku, and Gin and Aizen, and everyone and everything in between. I call it my fill-in fic, answering all my own questions about how things came to be between these characters. This is a long time coming for me as I started writing pieces for this story back in 2016. I know the series has long since died down, and while I can't speak for the rest of the fandom, it is a continuing labor of love for me. Please enjoy.

From a distance, Gin watches as her body gives out -- knees finally buckling, she trips over her own feet and slumps to the ground in a slow-motion collapse. She manages to push herself onto her back, face turned to the sun and the open blue sky before she goes limp. Lying motionless in the dirt, Gin has to wonder if the girl is dead.

The same thing that compelled him to follow her in the first place compels him to approach her now. To his relief, he can see slow, steady breaths flowing through her slack mouth and pushing her chest up and down as he gets closer. Her eyes are open, but they aren’t seeing anything beyond her lowered lashes.  
Gin kicks the bottom of her bare foot with his own, distantly stirring her from her comatose state so he doesn’t startle her when he sticks a dried persimmon in her face.

“Eat this.” There’s a glaze over her eyes, a mix of confusion and exhaustion, but she manages to focus them on the fruit in front of her before trailing up the line of Gin’s arm to his expectant face. “If you can pass out from hunger, that means you’ve got it, right? Reiryoku.”

“You, too?” Her voice is as dry as the dirt road beneath her, softer than the clouds in the sky. Gin is instantly captivated and he can’t help but grin.

“Yup, me too,” he confirms. “Ichimaru Gin. It’s nice to meet ya.”

“Gin…” She squints back up at the clouds, tracking their progression across the sky with miniscule movements of her pretty blue eyes. “That’s a strange name.”

“Don’t be rude. It’s the only one I’ve got.”

“No… I like it.” A weak smile cuts across her famished stupor and she shifts her gaze back to him. She still hasn’t taken the fruit from Gin’s hand, so he drops it onto her chest.

“I said, eat. You might not die of starvation just yet, but you won’t make it very far like that.” He won’t tell her that he’s been watching her waver back and forth for the last few miles, dragging her toes through the dirt as she struggled to keep moving forward. That aimless determination intrigued him just as much as the pull of her reiatsu. It’s been weeks since Gin has sensed anyone else with spiritual potential like him, and while hers is uncut and unstable, Gin knows that she is someone who could finally stand to be around him. She’s still a kid, just like him. Capable of being his equal. 

There’s something about her that makes Gin smile. “Where you headed?”

“I don’t know,” she answers, slowly pushing herself up on her elbows and then into a sitting position. “I was just gonna keep walking until I find something worth stopping for.”

“That’s stupid.” Gin joins her on the ground, cross-legged with the rest of the fruit in his lap.

“Don’t be rude,” she slings back at him, picking up the persimmon, “it’s the only option I’ve got.”

“What, you saying you ain’t got anywhere to go?”

The girl shakes her head, “Does anyone?” and finally bites into the wrinkled flesh of the fruit. It’s like she forgot what food feels like; she savors the first bite for what feels like forever before consuming the rest of it in a hungry rush. “What is this?”

“You never had hoshigaki before?” Gin balks when the girl shakes her head and a tangled golden tendril bounces over her face. “It’s dried persimmons. They’re my favorite.”

“It’s good,” she says after taking her last bite. The stem is sticky with fruit residue and her saliva, but she holds onto it, pinching it between her fingers until it dries itself out again.

“What’s your name?”

“Matsumoto Rangiku,” she says.

“How long you been in Rukongai, Rangiku-san?”

Shrugging, she takes a wild guess. “A month, maybe.” Then she asks, “What day is it?” 

Gin can see her eyeing the fruit in his lap and he passes her another piece. “Tuesday. The tenth.”

“What month?”

“September.”

“Oh.” Fruit flesh tears and she chews thoughtfully before speaking again. “I woke up in Kuzukonai sometime in July, I think. Everyone wanted to talk about how hot it was. The place was dirty, and boring, so I left and just started walking. Huge, too,” she adds, “I think it took me a couple days to reach the next district, but that place was just more of the same. So I kept walking, and now I’m here. Gonna keep going, and hope I find something more interesting along the way. Something worthwhile…”

“I told you, that’s stupid. No one has a place they’re supposed to be, so you might as well just settle down and make the most of it. Besides, people out here can be ruthless.” The fading bruise around her mouth tells him she already knows this. “You shouldn’t be alone.”

“I don’t need you to protect me.” 

“I wasn’t offering,” Gin says with an amused smile. There’s a reason she’s survived and made it this far. It may not be Inuzuri or Kuroshihoro, but life in the middle districts is still hard. People are still people, and they will fight for their survival just like any other living thing. “How do you know I’m not the one that wants protecting?”

“Well how do I know you’re not just trying to take advantage of me?” There’s a low, subtle harshness in her voice that’s meant for anyone that might dare to do such a thing, including Gin -- it’s a warning not to mess with her. The sudden ice in her voice clashes with the golden, spun sunshine hair and the wide, wondrous blue eyes. Round features and a little beauty mark on her chin -- she’s pretty, and Gin is glad to see that she’s not as naïve as she looks.

“I guess you don’t. If you want to walk alone, go for it,” Gin says briskly. “It’s not so heavily populated this far away from town, so you probably won’t get jumped or nothing. But if you die out here, there’s also a good chance no one will find you, and you’ll turn to dust without anyone ever knowing.” Gin rises to his feet and dumps the armful of remaining persimmons into her lap, some jostling and landing on the ground around her knees. “You wake up here alone, but that doesn’t mean you have to die alone. So don’t be stupid. Make sure you eat.” Then he turns on his heel and starts to walk away, raising a hand in farewell and speaking without turning around, making for a casually dramatic exit. “Bye-bye, Rangiku-san. If you don’t die, I hope I see ya again.”

***

A week passes. Gin is walking along a forest path, kicking clods of dirt out of his way with his bare feet when he hears a voice. Someone is singing, quietly to themselves like they aren’t quite sure they know the words. It’s low and unsteady, but Gin knows that soft timbre. Very few conversations and even fewer voices have been worth remembering in his time in the Rukongai, and this one brings a familiar smile to his face.

Apparently, she decided she didn’t want to walk anymore.

“Didn’t really expect to see you here,” he says, pushing through the tree line to the clearing where the girl is sitting, weaving flowers together into a crown to keep herself busy.

“Me either,” she lies. “Gin, right?”

“Yeah. How are ya now, Rangiku-san?”

“Okay,” she replies. She tries to sound nonchalant as she pulls the last dandelion into place and raises the crown up onto her head. “I think I’m gonna stick around this district for a while.”

“Oh, yeah?” Gin can’t help his triumphant grin, like he’s won some sort of contest. Of course it was the strange boy with the persimmons that made Rangiku want to stick around, but she won’t let him know that so easily. After all this time, she had finally found someone in this world who bothered to give a damn about her, or at least pretend to. No one had even asked for her name before him. 

“Yeah,” she nods. “I like it here. It’s pretty, and the townspeople are nice enough.”

“Just watch yourself around the old guy with the watermelons. He’s raped at least five girls in the past year.”

After that unpleasant reveal, Gin goes on to tell her about the underground brothel that attracts people to this district, and the delicious fruit they grow in the region, and the twins, sisters who had inexplicably found each other in the vast expanse of the Rukongai after they died and settled down together in town. It’s an incredibly rare phenomenon and they’re strangely proud of it.

“They say they’ve got a psychic bond,” Gin says derisively. “I mean, you gotta figure, out of all the people dying all over and getting sent out here, somebody must wind up lucky, right? Most of us just don’t.” 

Rangiku nods and agrees; most people aren’t that lucky, but she has a feeling she might be. 

After a few hours, Gin says his goodbyes with rumbles in his stomach. They’ve been walking nonstop, meandering through the thinly populated regions on the district’s outer edge. The girl now knows where some of the best fishing spots and wild berry thickets are, and which gardens and composts are the safest to pilfer from. Another full service tour of the inner neighborhoods and the market would take them well into the night and she’s already dragging her feet, trying not to look tired behind that unwavering smile. 

Whether the happiness she exudes is genuine or not, Gin can’t help but mirror her grin. It’s not a bad way to spend the afternoon -- she’s surprisingly good company. Easy to talk to, and easy to be around even when they’re not talking. Which isn’t often, because she’s rather boisterous and loves to crack wise just as much as Gin does. Running right alongside him, laughing frantically as they’re chased from a backyard plot ripe with squashes and sunflowers. There’s something innocent about her, but Gin can’t put his finger on it. She’s surely no angel, not pure or naïve or altruistic enough to warrant such a title. It’s more like an untapped reservoir with gentle power and radiance just lying beneath the surface. 

“I’ll see you around?” she says hopefully, fidgeting with her crown of yellow and white flowers. 

“Of course,” Gin says. A dark green ring of laurels still sits on his silver head, untouched since she first placed it there, cocked intentionally at a royal angle. “I like hanging out with you, Rangiku-san. I’ll see ya again, don’t worry.”

***

Most of the time, Gin is good at keeping to himself. Head down, watching his feet, he minds his own as he wanders through the district because he’s learned it’s the best way to avoid trouble when he doesn’t want it. Of course, there are times when he does want it and he’s become pretty good at seeking it out, but rarely does the trouble just drop into his lap.

Right now, his lap is filled with a handful of ground cherries and he’s busy squeezing them out of their little golden husks and popping them into his mouth one by one when he hears some commotion in the valley below. It sounds like the culmination of a one-sided fight, with adults laughing venomously over pained grunts and punches landing. Someone’s outnumbered, and they eventually succumb with a slow, heavy slump into the ground.

Gin drops another golden red fruit into his mouth. 

There’s a crowd of voices, all male, arguing in hushed tones. They hang around for a while, long enough for Gin to finish his snack. He hears the tinkling of something metal, and a strange, sweet burning smell fills the air. Wiping his hands on his knees, he stands and lets the empty husks flutter to the ground.  
Gin is surprised to see three adults dressed in long black robes hunched over an unconscious man -- Shinigami, picking fights. Swords on their hips, talking loudly, barely bothering to inspect their surroundings. 

It’s not that shinigami are exceedingly rare out here in the Rukongai -- they have missions and patrols, but the further out one gets, the less the Sereitei cares. Patrols in the 80th districts are essentially nonexistent. Here, in the low fifties, they’ll see shinigami a few times in a month, but this is the third group of soldiers Gin has seen in the past week.

Gin knows instinctively that they’re the ones who put Rangiku on the ground, who left that blood in the corner of her mouth yesterday, and he can’t help but turn on his heel and follow them down the path. 

A strange sense of déjà vu had plagued him as he kicked her foot and nudged her awake. She looked up at him, eyes glazed over, just like their first time. It took her longer to acknowledge him, and when he asked her what happened, she couldn’t tell him. Pulling her to her feet, he offered to show her around the central neighborhoods, or the district border line. She agreed, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something had changed, something had happened. 

Those men had done something to his new friend. 

They show no sign of noticing Gin as he falls into step behind them, stalking from beyond the tree line. Fallen pine needles and the naturally sandy dirt are gentle on his bare feet, but they cannot pick up every trace of sound coming from his heels so he masks his spiritual pressure as best he can to compensate. One misstep, and they would easily outnumber him, overwhelm him, and ultimately overpower him. All armed, they’re soldiers trained to kill. 

But they’re soldiers with piss poor instincts, apparently. Despite several stumbles and cracking branches, they never notice their tiny pursuer, who blends in neatly with the stripes of shadows and light cast by branches and leaves. Laughing now, they tramp boldly and blithely through the district, all the way to the boundary lines where Gin grows wary of following much further. 

Here, they settle down and wait, and Gin steadies his breath and sinks a little deeper into the shade of the underbrush to wait right alongside them. They’re not laughing anymore, though they are still talking, conspiratorially. One smokes a few cigarettes, measuring the time by flicked ashes and squished tobacco ends. The scene couldn’t look more casual, and Gin starts to wonder if maybe he’s wasting his time. What is he supposed to do, anyway? Now that he’s followed them all the way out here? 

Their demeanor changes quickly and seemingly without notice and it just takes Gin an extra moment to sense it -- a powerful presence that makes every hair on his arms and legs stand on edge. It puts an immediate stop to his deliberation of whether or not to get the drop on them and bash at least two of them over the head with rocks. He tenses right alongside the Shinigami, ready for whatever it is to appear. 

It’s only a man, with dark hair and the same black robes as the others. Tall, relative to Gin, but not big. He’s wearing glasses. His sword is regal on his hip, but Gin gets the feeling he could kill him without ever having to draw it. He greets the now-kneeling soldiers with a nod and a forced smile.

He’s the boss.

Gin watches their exchange, his jaw clenched. Each of the lower shinigami withdraw glass jars from inside their robes and when they crack them open, a strange sensation slithers across the ground and wraps around Gin’s ankles. Whatever is in there, he can sense it, feel it. It has weight, it has presence, like a new person just entered the clearing. Then the leader reaches out and takes the contents from one of the shinigami’s outstretched hands. 

Whatever it is suddenly feels familiar to Gin. It’s warm, and accepting. 

It reminds him of Rangiku.

And as the man, the boss, stares covetously at it, half a sick smile on his face, it calls out to Gin, just like the day they met. 

Gin opens his eyes wide and a thought forms in the back of his mind: he’d one day like to kill this man.  
He watches him dump each fragment into a stout glass cylinder, where something dense and powerful consumes and absorbs them, wiping their essence from the face of the earth. It’s unsettling, the indifference in this man, who shaves the souls of innocent people and destroys them like ants under his heel. Gin’s stomach flips.

They don’t linger for long after that. A few curt orders, and the boss dismisses the men with a wave of his hand. Despite his sharp senses, honed from necessity, Gin cannot make out what they’re saying. He can watch their lips move around words and names, but its muted, absorbed by the sand and the pine needles and the sun-warmed air. There’s nothing that reveals who they are beyond nameless shinigami, four soldiers in an army of thousands. 

Gin can’t bring himself to move just yet. If he moves, he might throw up. 

There’s a mess of feelings he’s not familiar with all knotted up in his gut. Guilt, worry. It makes him hot with anger, cold with despair. It’s fucked up, what he just witnessed. And it’s fucked up that that’s all he could do -- sit back and watch, hiding in the shadows. Small and weak, afraid. Words he would never have used to describe himself before today. He wonders if he’ll ever vindicate these feelings he has, or make it up to himself for the passive role he played in this perverted performance. 

After a while, all those tumultuous feelings subside, and he can stand on his own two feet again. There’s a chilly melancholy still hanging around his shoulders, but he’s no stranger to this sensation. His whole life has been one long string of bittersweet phenomena, tiny victories and pinprick losses. Gin, lost in his thoughts, wanders back to his usual stomping grounds, and upon seeing the yellow flowers on the side of the path, weeds that Rangiku had happily weaved into a grand crown, he realizes that he has something now he doesn’t really want to lose.

***

For once, their meeting is predetermined. Gin gives her a time and a meeting place, a landmark she now knows after their tour of the market place. Not yet used to telling time by the sun, she’s about an hour late, but Gin doesn’t mind waiting.

“I was about to leave ya behind,” he lies. “Come on, we’ll miss it.”

Just outside the central plaza, near a big tree with broad leaves that can offer plenty of shade in the summer, a makeshift ring has been scratched out in the dirt, a familiar rut worn from frequent use. There’s already a pair of adults grappling in the circle and a crowd of people gathered to watch. Rarely is the fight personal, though some will arrange to settle scores in the presence of the district residents, who gather every week to watch this macabre form of entertainment. People will bet money and those that get hungry bring snacks.

(Gin has jumped in once or twice, curious about what it feels like to be punched with someone’s full force, fueled by an aimless indignation at the world around them. He didn’t like it. It felt much better to be the one throwing the angry punch than receiving it, so he set out to get better and realized he was good enough all along. Reading his opponent’s moves is easy and the responses come naturally. He moves like smoke, dodges and counters and follows through without a second thought.)

All around them are groups of spectators, shouting and cheering together. A few young children watch, not yet understanding as they’re swaddled in the arms of women who were once strangers. Young boys miming weak lefts and uppercuts cheer on the men they call brothers and fathers. 

“Hey, I’m curious,” Rangiku says when there’s a lull between bouts. They have to drag the last loser from the circle, unconscious with blood dripping from his face onto the packed earth. “Why didn’t you find a family to live with when you got here? Isn’t that what most people do?”

“Well, people don’t usually take a liking to me the way you did,” Gin says, pulling at a piece of his silver hair. “I can live without ‘em. I could be asking you the same question -- why didn’t you settle down in any of the other districts you went through? I’m sure there are plenty of folks that would’ve wanted to take a pretty girl like you in. You seem a little too high maintenance to be wandering around all by yourself, you know. I mean, you were nearly dead the first time I found ya.” 

And nearly dead the last time he found her, too.

“Shut up,” she says. 

“Besides,” Gin shrugs, “I’m not that great of company anyway.”

“I think you’re very good company.”

Gin can’t remember the last time he felt his chest get all tight with joy and warm feelings. It almost shocks him, so foreign is the sensation that for a second he thinks he might be getting sick. He realizes it’s because of her, because of his attachment to her. It’s not unpleasant, and he could do with more of it. Maybe it’ll replace some of the cold indifference and gnawing melancholy that he’s so accustomed to. Maybe it’ll be nice not to be alone anymore.

“Hey, Rangiku-san, why don’t you come and live with me?” 

She agrees, and without any possessions to her name, moving her into the little one room house Gin inhabits is easy. There’s plenty of space for her and Gin says he’ll go out and find some bedding for her tomorrow, but he can’t make any promises. They share his blanket the first night, awkwardly exchanging their warmth and the air between them on the floor, and just like that, the little shack becomes a home.


	2. Year

“You have really nice eyes, Rangiku-san. I’m jealous.”

“Jealous?” she repeats. “Why?”

“They’re pretty,” Gin says bluntly. “Mine aren’t like that.”

“All eyes are pretty.”

“Nope,” he insists, “not mine.”

“You’re always squinting all the time -- what do you know? Let me see.” 

“Hey, quit it.” Gin fights half-heartedly against the hand in his face, repeatedly smacking away her fingers until they’ve resorted to gripping his shoulders and holding him in place. She comes at him like she’s going to bite him or spit in the eyes he refuses to show her. Their play-fighting evolves into a good-natured, full-bodied scuffle in the dirt, punctuated with triumphant laughs and harmless curses. It’s not a serious altercation, so Gin doesn’t try to fight back with any force, thinking he can just deflect her until she grows tired or frustrated and gives up on harassing him. But he underestimates her and Rangiku winds up pinning him to the ground, sitting on his chest.

“Now open up,” the victor commands, triumphant. “Show me.” 

Breathing out a resigned sigh, Gin lets his head fall back into the dust, defeated. It’s a little unnatural, but his face looks surprisingly relaxed without the tension of narrowed eyes. His brows curve upwards into an exaggerated arch as he raises his eyelids. He makes a show of rolling his eyes, annoyed, before looking at Rangiku, who swallows the teasing comments she had poised on her tongue with a tight-lipped smile. She never knew what color Gin’s eyes were until now and the sudden blue of his irises, so pale and piercing, feels like a bucket of cold water dumped on her head, turning into ice along her spine. 

Tiny, pitch black pupils dilate and expand as he holds onto Rangiku’s gaze, matching her intense stare. Sharp, determined, perceptive eyes that are just as beautiful as Gin claims hers are dissect and expose her and for an instant, Rangiku is kind of glad he keeps them so obscured because she couldn’t stand to have this icicle glare on her all the time. It warms something at the back of her throat and makes her shift uncomfortably on top of him.

Unsettling and Gin knows it. “See what I mean?” he says. It’s not clear who blinks first, but someone does, and then his mask is pulled back into place, erasing any trace of emotion on Gin’s face beyond wry amusement as he struggles to sit up and flick a thin finger against Rangiku’s forehead.  
“Happy now?”

“Ow.”

“Now let me up -- you’re crushing me. I can’t breathe.”

“Don’t be rude,” she snaps, grabbing his finger before he can flick her again. When he tries to thump her with the other hand, she counters with surprising speed. “That’s like calling a girl fat, you know.”

“What would you have me say then?”

“That you wouldn’t mind being my captive for a little longer,” she says happily, twisting his finger.

“Hey, hey, hey! Quit it.” It feels like she’s about to break his finger. “I wouldn’t mind so much, but my ribs do.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Gin,” she gushes teasingly. “I didn’t realize you were so frail.” A final jab at him before she releases his hand and stands up, brushing dirt from her knees. Gin stays lying down, linking his fingers behind his head to support it. 

“Just look at me, Rangiku-san,” he laughs, “I’m no more than skin and bones.”

“You don’t have to be so formal with me, you know.”

“How’s that?” 

“I just call you Gin,” she says by way of an explanation. A shrug fills in for the rest of her reasoning.

“Okay, Rangiku.” Gin smiles up at her. “I can do that.”

***

The first time he wanders off, Rangiku freaks out, and understandably so. There one minute and gone the next, Gin disappears without a sound or any indication that he was ever there in the first place. They’ve been nigh inseparable since they met, but there’s a moment after they finish eating their evening meal when Gin just feels the need to go. When Rangiku’s back is turned, he simply walks off into the woods with barely a footprint left behind in the sandy earth.

The air is crisp, promising winter and frost and cold nights to come. He doesn’t go anywhere special -- he doesn’t have the drive to walk barefoot all the way into town or to the neighboring district, but it still feels good to walk, to feel the earth under his feet and the motion of his legs carrying him forward, faking a sense of progress when in reality he feels dry and stagnant. Aimlessly wandering, wasting time in the endless expanse of the afterlife, just counting the days to eternity. 

With nowhere to go, he stays close to home. Within shouting distance, actually, because he can hear the minute Rangiku gives up on patience and starts calling for him, worry causing a tremor in her pitched-up voice.

“Gin!”

The poorly-veiled panic in her tone proves that she already can’t stand to be without him. Being alone after being so close… it may be unthinkable for her but it’s relatively inconsequential for Gin. He lived for years by himself, as happy as could be, and he would have no problem returning to that lifestyle. Not that he regrets deciding to share his life with Rangiku, not at all, he’s just used to being alone, and right now he’s missing it. 

No one to worry about him or police his actions; free to come and go as he pleases. No one to question him or judge him. Rangiku accepts him, but she probably wouldn’t understand him or this prickling wanderlust that plagues him. So he decides to stay hidden, calmly mitigating his presence so he can watch her fret over him, run back and forth through the woods, searching low and high, but never high enough. The lacebark elm he’s climbed has enough foliage remaining to keep him and his shiny hair obscured from view, but if she really looked hard enough she could probably pick him out among the graceful branches and leaves. 

When she finally spies him up in the tree, she doesn’t say anything. In fact, she tries to mask any expression of acknowledgement when she notices Gin hiding among the boughs. Her features are schooled, still painted panic, and she quickly turns and continues her scan of the tree line. As far as she can tell, he doesn’t notice that she noticed him, and she keeps walking, ignoring him while simultaneously pretending to be concerned for him. 

If he had wanted her to come along, he would have said something. 

So she doesn’t say anything when he gets back, doesn’t ask him where he went. All she needed to know was that Gin was still breathing somewhere, and now that she’s confirmed it, she’s free to be as peeved as she wants. She chides him for his rudeness, for taking off without any sort of goodbye, for making her worry about him.

Unfazed by her scolding, Gin pulls out a few smooshed cherries he picked on his walk earlier. He pops one in his mouth, spits the pit back out and says, “I never asked you to worry about me.”

***

“Hey. When is your birthday, Rangiku?”

“I don’t know,” she answers, unbothered by another one of Gin’s little questions. “Things like that had no meaning to me before I met you.” The answer clearly doesn’t satisfy Gin -- he’s looking at her like he doesn’t believe her. Like maybe he’s waiting for her to change her mind and just pick a day, but she never kept track of the days before she met him.

“Then, the day we met is your birthday,” he declares, and that thought gives her pause. A birthday is a beginning. A starting line. It’s the first day of the rest of her life -- a life that will begin and probably end with Gin. 

“All right, Rangiku?” The doubt on his face is gone, now replaced by assurance. “What do you say?”

***

“The good thing about being dead is that the cold doesn’t really bother you anymore,” Gin says when they wake up one morning and find their yard blanketed with snow. The snowflakes are no longer falling but the cold that formed them is undeniable. Rangiku leans unconsciously into him, searching for warmth that she won’t find from his thin body and dry skin. He can feel how tense she is, worried that the simple yukata she has on will do nothing to keep her from freezing.

“It’s like how if you’re dead, you don’t have to eat,” he explains, “unless you’ve got reiryoku. If you’ve got it, you get hungry. And you can die from it. With this, it’s like… the other way around. There’s just something about your energy that keeps you warmer than everyone else.” 

“I can feel it,” she says, and knows that of course he’s right. The dull nipping at her fingertips and nose is proof that the cold is still out there, lurking and waiting to put everything to sleep, but it’s like it passes by without even noticing her. She sits safely just beyond its periphery, and the cold continues on with no more than a surface level touch. 

“Come on,” Gin says, nodding towards the open doorway. “The first snow’s always the nicest. As long as your clothes don’t get too wet, you’ll be fine.”

“It _is_ gorgeous,” Rangiku says, rising to her feet. She says, “I’d almost hate to mess it up,” but takes a leap off the porch into the snow, breaking through the frigid layer with a soft, satisfying crunch. Even with ice between her toes, she feels nothing more than a cool tingle. Refreshing like the stream in the summertime. Gin is right -- there’s something inside her keeping her warm while her breath freezes and the snow absorbs all the sound in the world. 

Gin joins her, stomping through the snow in an abstract circle and leaving toe prints around the perimeter of the house. Rangiku scoops up a handful of the softer powder and lets it fall through her fingers like clumpy sand from the riverbank and says, “I guess that’s the good thing about winter.”

“How’s that?” Gin calls from the other side of the yard.

“You can mess up the world however you want, but it all looks the same once the snow falls. Everything is quiet and still, and peaceful. The ugly things get to look beautiful.”

“How poetic,” Gin says and then he nails her with a snowball.

***

The snow stops and the ice eventually melts away and the mud seeps between their toes wherever they walk. It feels good to stretch out and shake off the cold that kept them stiff and stationary as they waited out the harsher parts of winter. Although Gin claimed they wouldn’t freeze to death, he kept a cautious eye on their fire and made sure Rangiku didn’t track wet feet into their home. 

This is the first night they don’t worry about keeping the fire going past dinner. Draping blankets over their shoulders, they move out to the porch to watch the stars in the clear sky and eat dessert -- the last of their preserved persimmons. Rangiku eats slowly, savoring the treat. Gin nearly swallows his whole and licks his fingers, waiting for Rangiku to offer him a bite of hers. She doesn’t. 

“What’s your favorite thing to eat?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” she answers reluctantly. “You always ask me these silly questions, and I can never seem to give you a good enough answer. You’re always mocking me when I tell you.”

“Am not.”

“Yeah, you are. And it’s stupid, because there’s so much stuff out there, and what if my favorite food is something that I haven’t tried yet, huh?” 

“Well, I guess you got a point.”

“And we’ve been eating out of your cupboard for the last three months anyway.” The cloying flavors of winter, of dried this and pickled that, cling to the inside of her mouth, making her crave freshness and crunch and bright excitement on her tongue. “No variety… it’s all pretty bland, too.” 

“So ungrateful,” Gin sighs and tries to swipe the dried fruit from her grasp as payment for her rudeness. She’s not fast enough and she pays the price, losing the last bite of her snack to Gin’s grinning mouth. “Don’t worry,” he says, “spring’s coming. So there’ll be lots of good stuff out there to eat. Always fresh when you pick it yourself, too. We’ll find something for ya.” He looks up into the night as if he can see the rising temperature on the horizon. If they’re quiet, they can hear the snow melting and the water rushing underground. Unsprung leaves and roots are humming with excitement, waiting for their chance to bloom. 

“Good,” Rangiku says. “I can’t taste anything besides salted fish and pickled beets, and it’s getting gross.” Despite her sort-of excited anticipation, it’s a few more weeks before the grass is back and the trees are breathing again. Unfortunately, it’s not nice enough to go foraging, so they’re still eating mostly plain rice and scraping the bottom of their preservative jars for flavor and fun, seeing how far their tongues can reach. 

Gin ventures out a few times, short walks through the woods and one two-day-long surprise sojourn, but he returns empty-handed each time. There’s a few heavy rainfalls, a sudden cold snap, a warming sun and then one afternoon, Rangiku wakes up from a nap to find him sharpening their knife against a big gray rock he dug up, dampening the gritty stone in between passes of the blade. 

“You hungry?” he asks.

“Starving,” Rangiku answers, rolling over and watching the effortless way Gin scrapes the blade across the surface of the stone. It’s a practiced, memorized movement, honed from years of use as far as Rangiku can tell. It only took him a few days to get it down, to learn the way the metal moves against the surface, to tell when the heat of friction grows too hot and he needs to stop, to find the best angles to strop and sharpen at, and he’s been on autopilot ever since. 

“Good,” he answers. “Should be plenty out there now. Timing’s great, too. We’re out of food here.” 

“What are you going to get?” Rangiku asks excitedly, inching closer to Gin’s side. “What’s the first thing you’re gonna cook for me to try?”

“Hey,” he says, tempering her expectations before it gets out of hand, “you’re gonna have to start pulling your weight here, you know. Can’t just sit around and be a pretty face no more.”

“Aw, you saying you think I’m pretty?” she says, her voice gushing with tease.

“Well, sure,” he answers. “Pretty enough to join the brothel, I’d bet. You know, we could make so much money that way. I hear you can make over a hundred Kan in a day. We wouldn’t have to go looking for food at all. We could just buy everything we wanted…”

“Gin.” Rangiku reaches out and grabs his arm. The suggestion has cold sweat bunching up at her temples, on her back beneath her shirt, and her palms are suddenly clammy. She’s seen the men (and the women) that linger around the whorehouse in town, seen their lecherous grins and mouthfuls of chewing tobacco, dripping bubbly brown juice down their chins when they spit. She’s seen the stone eyes of the working girls when they’re sent out to the market, fading bruises on arms and ankles, cracked lips splitting under forced smiles. “You’re not being serious are you?”

“Of course not, stupid. I’m only joking.”

“You have a terrible sense of humor.”

“I ain’t never heard that before,” he says. “Come on, if you don’t wanna work for the twins, I’ll put you to work here. I’ll show you how to forage, and how to cook your own meals. Won’t need me for nothing. How about that?”

“Perfect,” she says sternly. “I can’t wait to be rid of you.” 

“Alright,” he grins, “then let’s get going.” He puts away the wet stone, slips the knife into the sash at his waist, grabs Rangiku’s hand and a little burlap sack and bounds out the door to the fresh wide word around them. He takes her out into the hills and valleys and with his keen eyes and natural intuition, helps teach Rangiku about the flora and fauna of the Rukongai that have helped keep him alive for all these years. He’s a noble scavenger and proudly wears a flower crown Rangiku made for him as he crawls hands and knees through duff and dust to collect their ingredients. 

There’s horsetail, which Gin tells her is good for your bones and really nice in soups. In a calm, almost idyllic marsh, they wade knee-deep into the still waters to pull the stalks up from along the bank. Knotweed is a noted pain reliever and is easy to prepare. After a few minutes of boiling and a handful of sesame seeds for flavor, they’re ready to eat. Perilla plants, both green and purple, are a good staple for salads and can garnish an almost infinite variety of meals. Gin recommends steeping the leaves into a tea if you’ve got a stomachache. 

He shows her how to pluck and pick and process, cure and pickle and preserve, taking extra care to teach her the proper technique for harvesting takenoko. “Snap it off at the ground level, or below,” he says, and deftly breaks the baby bamboo shoot in two with one hand. “Peel these outer leaves off, and boil it later. A meal fit for a king. Or a panda, at least.” 

Prudence, not one of Rangiku’s better qualities, becomes extremely important in scavenging. If you’re too liberal with plucking the coveted angelica buds, there won’t be any trees left to grow. If you don’t take the time to differentiate the female royal ferns from the male, your meal will be bitter and too tough to eat. If you ignore the shape of the leaves surrounding them, the red berries you picked will make you sick. 

Cowbane, rhubarb, a certain strain of star anise -- all poisonous, though they won’t give you nothing worse than a stomachache or maybe a rash, according to Gin. It’s the mushrooms especially you gotta watch out for. Some of those are deadly, but in his eyes, it’s always worth the risk. The slight crunch of enoki, the winter mushrooms; the earthy, spicy flavor of sheep’s head; the richness of a king’s trumpet make the hunting worthwhile. “Just watch out for the angel wings, and the black brittlegills,” he advises, and is sure to point the dangerous ones out whenever he spots them. Wrapping her mind tightly around seeds and stems and roots, Rangiku catches on quickly and is quick to differentiate between the helpful and the harmful whenever Gin tries to quiz her. 

He’s impressed, and lets her in on his secret spots, the best places to harvest -- hardwood forests, a few grassy plains, old farmland that had been slashed and burned and abandoned, left to flourish on its own. There’s a distant grove of red pines that he covets because every autumn it blesses him with hordes of matsurake, a spicy and expensive mushroom that he can turn a real profit on. “But,” he says, as if he’s doing her a favor, “I wouldn’t mind saving a few extra for us if it turns out you like them, too.”

They’re opportunistic omnivores, eating whatever is edible around them. Getting meat is hard. It’s too expensive. Fishing is easier, though they usually wind up more bone than fish when it comes time for Gin to gut them. Rangiku squirms at the first few cuts, all the red and silver and the brown when he accidentally cuts too deep and ruptures the intestines, cursing. Scales stick to the backs of his hands and make him glimmer and reflect, almost mythical, in the sunlight.

“Pain in my ass,” he mutters, washing away his shining skin. 

One day Gin comes home whooping and hollering, proud that his ingenious little trap worked and he caught them a wild grouse. It’s small with a fine pattern of white and brown feathers on its breast. It hangs docile in Gin’s hand, not bothering to put up any sort of fight as he carries it by the legs to a corner of the yard where blood and entrails have stained the grass a sad brown beneath the cutting board. He ties the legs to a tree and tells Rangiku to start heating some water. When she comes back out, he’s wrapped the bird in a long strip of linen, hugging it against the trunk. 

“It’s calmer like this,” Gin explains. “Ain’t no reason it’s gotta suffer.”

Smooth and confident, he cuts a line not so deep through the neck and holds the head while the bird drains, dark red blood washing over his fingers and warming his palm. The thrashing and twitching is what gets Rangiku and she scowls and says, “I thought you said it wouldn’t suffer.”

“The bird’s already dead, Ran.” His little nickname for her. “It’s just nerves or something. I’ll fix you frog legs sometime and you’ll see -- those guys stay jumping even if they’ve lost their head.”

For a week Rangiku considers cutting meat out of her diet. By the next week, she’s holding the knife and following Gin’s instructions as she slits her first fish open and pulls out its intestines with her fingers. She’s a fast learner, Gin says, and draws a line of blood across her forehead, laughing.

“Soon you won’t need me for anything,” he says proudly. Rangiku secretly hopes that isn’t true.

***

“Pack your bags, Rangiku, we’re going on a trip.”

Instead of asking where they might be headed, Rangiku swivels her head around their spartan home and raises an eyebrow. “I don’t have any bags to pack, Gin.”

“Then this’ll be quick. Let’s get a move on.”

It’s somewhat liberating to be able to get up and go -- no possessions to weigh them down or hold them back. It’s freedom, enthralling in its simplicity and empowering in its expedience. It takes less than two minutes to grab the essentials and head out, a full canteen on Gin’s hip and a few pears crammed in Rangiku’s pocket to eat along the way. All their other possessions, the bare minimums needed to live their little lives, are tucked away under a loose floorboard, leaving the house looking derelict and not even worth robbing. The building is barely out of sight when Rangiku finally gives in and asks where they’re going in such a rush.

“There’s a festival in Furumaki this weekend,” Gin answers, strolling happily along with his fingers linked behind his head. This sort of spontaneity is what he lives for, though he usually doesn’t have enough time or foresight to invite Rangiku along on whatever pleasant misadventure he stumbles upon. Too often his intentions are too malicious for her, anyway -- she doesn’t like to encourage his pickpocketing and pranks, but she silently condones the way he beats up the older kids in town when they make fun of the younger kids without clothes or families. Their threats and insults about his hair and his accent amuse him, make him smile as he brushes dirt and blood from his knuckles. 

“And where is that?” she asks.

“It’s the 47th district in the east.”

“That’s a long walk, Gin! You don’t really expect me to go that far for some local matsuri, do you?”

“You said you’ve never seen fireworks.”

“So?”

“So, I know for a fact they do them every year around this time -- to celebrate their harvest -- and I want you to see it. I’ll carry you if I have to.” 

“Oh.” Part of Rangiku thinks that this isn’t really for her -- it’s for him. He probably just wanted to go to this festival for the fun of it but didn’t feel like walking there alone this time and the fireworks are a good enough excuse to drag her along for a hundred miles across the Rukongai, spur of the moment. Yet she also knows that this type of casual thoughtfulness is quintessential Gin. The little acts of kindness always seem small and inconsequential, since he never asks for anything in return, but she knows Gin does his best to give her whatever she needs or wants without ever making it seem like a big deal. 

“Well, in that case,” Rangiku says, settling, “bend over, let me jump on your back.”

“I didn’t mean the whole way! We haven’t even left the district yet -- can you at least wait until we reach Hanashima?”

“Nope. You want me to see these fireworks, you’re really gonna have to carry me because I never agreed to this long of a walk.” Without waiting for him to assent, Rangiku has her arms slung around his shoulders, tugging on his neck and dragging him down so she can climb up and hitch a ride for the next twenty miles.

“Okay, fine! Calm down, won’t ya? Look, I’ll carry you to the northeast boundary, so at least wear the canteen.”

“That sounds fair.” Some mild readjusting and Rangiku is settled on Gin’s back, her arms linked around his neck as he supports her legs and lets her dusty heels knock against his thighs. “You know this isn’t enough food or water to last the whole way,” she scolds, the canteen bouncing on her waist with every step.

“We’ll figure something out.” 

“You always say that.”

“And we always do, don’t we? Now quit whining. You’re heavy enough as it is, I can do without the complaining.”

She smacks the back of his head, but remains silent. He never told her exactly how long he’d been dead, but it’s clear he died much sooner than Rangiku did, and at an earlier age, too. Parts of him are mature while others are petulant and crass and unerringly mischievous. The lack of a filter, his honesty and offensiveness make it clear that he’s still a kid, just trying to make his way in this world. He might be a little aimless, but Gin is resourceful and bright and experienced, familiar with the dreary landscape of the Rukongai, and she’d trust him with her life out here. 

Despite his skinny wrists and thin voice, Gin is strong, and he keeps up a steady jaunt across the district, crossing the boundary between territories in no time at all. With the late summer sun warming her back, the dreamily barren scenery, the steady movement and pace of Gin’s feet on the ground, Rangiku could fall asleep like this and float the rest of the way to their destination.

“Hey, at this rate, we’ll make it in time for your birthday.”

“My birthday?” She says, picking up her head from where it was resting against Gin’s. Drowsiness is creeping along her spine, warming the inside of her head and almost causing her to loosen her grip around her friend’s neck. 

“Yeah. It’s on the tenth, remember? We lucked out this year.”

“Of course… It’s just…” She pauses, laughs to herself. “It’s really been a year since we met?”

The days at Gin’s side have passed by at an incomprehensible rate, time stretching and compressing between each moment they spend together. Each day holds something novel and exciting, though it feels like they’ve been exploring life together for decades. 

“Yeah, dummy,” Gin nods, laughing. “It’s a wonder you survived out here without me. How can you know you’re moving forward if you don’t even know what day it is?”

“Excuse me, I did just fine without you,” Rangiku says. “And I did move forward, didn’t I? I kept moving, and met you, and look at us now -- still moving.”

“Well, one of us is moving,” Gin mutters. 

“Oh, shut up and keep walking.”

They sleep under the stars that night and roll into Furumaki in the early evening of the following day. Gin has a secret stash of coins squirrelled away inside his yukata and he surprises Rangiku when he purchases a fried pastry filled with red bean paste for her. His fingers, literally sticky with sugar, swipe a semi-warm taiyaki from a nearby stand for himself. 

They stroll and explore, admiring the craftsmen and musicians and the colorful banners and stands, ducking through alleyways and shrines, passing time until it gets dark. When the crowd becomes a little too overwhelming around dusk, they escape to the far edge of town where a few kids are playing on the dusty lawn in the last bit of dying light. Gin joins them, kicking a ball around the dried grass while Rangiku crunches away on some rice crackers he pilfered for them earlier. By the time she’s finished, Gin has gotten into an altercation with one of the other kids and Rangiku has to drag him away before he breaks the girl’s arm. 

Once they’re sure they’re not going to be pursued as trouble-making outsiders, Gin leads them to a small hill crowned with horsetail and stiltgrass and a few quiet families all gathered to watch the show. It’s a special occasion, so he’s sprung for one final serving of dango for them to enjoy while the pyro technicians set up their rockets across the way. 

“It’s starting,” he says as he watches a torch being passed between each fuse, sending a small shower of sparks raining down onto the ground. The anticipation on the hill is palpable as the wicks burn down to the end. And then, suddenly and heavily, the first rocket is racing right up into the sky with an inaugural blast of red and purple. 

Rangiku gasps and her open mouth curves into a smile. Enamored by the quick flashes of light and noise, her eyes are wide, reflecting awe and all the royal shades of color painting the sky. More rockets shoot up in neat, straight lines and explode against the backdrop of stars. The smell of burning paper and sulfur begins to fill the air, the smoke thick in the low points of the valley. 

The fireworks continue to dance, and the two of them stand among the weeds and watch them, twisting and turning and then stopping and falling, releasing cascades of color and sound that rattle deep in the smaller kids’ chests. They don’t even try to talk in between the explosions, except for the one time between green crashes and gold screams that Gin leans over and says, “Happy birthday, Rangiku.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally this was intended to be one chapter, but it offered a natural stopping point that allowed me to split it into two. Next chapter will continue with Rukongai tomfoolery. I just wanted to write them hanging out in the woods


	3. Years

There’s a voice that calls to Gin sometimes. Mostly late at night, when he’s trying to sleep. It must be easier to traverse the boundary between psyche and soul when he’s drowsy or dreaming because that’s always when it’s the strongest. During the day, it’s no more than the ghost of some feeling in his stomach or a shiver at the ends of his hair. Of course, he’s still drowsy or dreaming when he hears the diaphanous voice calling from underneath his consciousness, so he can never quite tell what it’s saying. Sometimes it sounds like it’s angry, or praying, or looking for something, maybe someone. Even if Gin tries to answer, his words are lost, swallowed by the space inside his brain. 

Tonight, the space inside his head is crowded and loud. It’s always something new, something weirdly prolific. This time, it’s a gentle chorus of the voice, layered over itself again and again as it chants some hymn in a language that Gin has never heard before but sounds very pretty. Even still, Gin’s sleep is restless. He tosses and turns, tiptoeing along the edge of unconscious until a sudden yank on his collar pulls him into waking reality. 

“What gives, Ran?” 

She’s got one hand clenched in his shirt, the other in her blanket. Some vivid dream has her face twisted, eyes shut tight. It’s not vivid enough to wake her up, but Gin knows he can’t sleep like this, with her clinging to him. It’s annoying, suffocating. When he hesitates to loosen her grip and roll away, worried there’s a chance he could wake her yet, there’s bright laughter inside his right temple. It startles him, and for the first time, the voice follows him out of his unconscious and speaks clearly, asking what someone like him is doing with someone with like her, someone with a fractured soul.

“Is that what happened to her?” he asks internally, mentally groping around trying to find the pathway that will lead him to this new presence in his head. This person, this thing, is speaking from the edges of his awareness and hiding in the darkness in the corner of his vision. Thankfully his voice manages to reach it. 

“Yeah,” the disembodied voice answers, deigning to respond to Gin’s question. It’s a conversation now, clear as day inside his head, though he’s having trouble wrapping his mind around it. “Part of its missing.”

“Taken from her, yeah?”

“You already know this.”

“Do you think she knows?”

“How am I to know?"

“Do you think it hurt?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re a part of me, aren’t you?” There’s no response. It’s already gone. “What if you disappeared?” Gin asks anyway. “How do you think I would feel?”

Lonely, probably. Which is why he scoots a little closer to Rangiku and puts and arm around her, stroking through her tousled hair until she relaxes and lets him go, and he can finally fall asleep.

***

“Gin, what the hell is that?”

“What the hell does it look like? It’s a snake,” Gin says, even though the slithering reptile in his hands seems self-explanatory. “Don’t worry, it ain’t venomous.” It’s only a rat snake, though it is the largest rat snake Gin has ever seen. 

“Sorry, I meant what the hell are you doing with it?” 

“It was sitting on the path when we left earlier,” he explains, turning his hands this way and that to keep up with the snake’s sinuous movements. “It didn’t seem to care when we walked by it, and it hasn’t moved since then. So I picked it up. I was curious what it’d do, but it really don’t seem to care all that much. I think it’s a blue general.” 

Rangiku looks at him like he’s a little bit crazy, which he probably is, but she won’t hold it against him. Despite her judgmental gaze, Gin is just happy to see that she’s not repulsed by the thing. In fact, she leans in a little closer, tentatively, to look at the dark jade color of the scales, the big round pupils uncommon in reptiles. It flicks its tongue out to taste the air and Rangiku jumps a little. She jumps even more when Gin pretends its striking at her. 

“You gonna keep it?” she asks once he stops laughing at her.

“No,” Gin says, “I just wanted to show ya. I’m gonna let him go.” 

“You know, it might make a good pet -- don’t snakes eat mice and stuff? It can chase down the ones that’ve been getting into our rice,” Rangiku says, proud of her own ingenuity. 

“It’s a wild animal, Rangiku,” Gin insists. “It wouldn’t stand for being kept as someone’s pet.” He lowers himself to one knee and sets the animal down on the ground. It slithers right out of his hands, disappearing into the underbrush without a second thought.

“Besides,” he says, “I’m no good at taking care of things.”

***

“Do you remember how you died, Rangiku? Or what your life was like before?”

“Not really,” she admits. There’s some sap wedging its way between the creases her of fingers as she follows Gin’s path up the massive pine they’re climbing. “I think I remember my father, and our house, but I don’t know what his face looked like. Or what city we lived in -- but I know there was a river… And I used to play in the water on hot days.” She disappears for a minute, vacationing to the corners of her brain she hasn’t visited in years. “I have no idea how I died.”

“I figured. People with reiryoku usually don’t remember their lives before this. The more spiritual power you got, the less of your living self you remember.”

“So you don’t know how you died or anything either?”

“Nope,” Gin says, hefting himself onto a thick branch and inching down to make room for Rangiku, “not a thing.” When he woke up, Gin didn’t even know his own name -- he had to make one up for himself. 

“It’s probably better this way, right?” she says. “It’s like a fresh start. I think it would make me sad to know how I died… spend eternity wondering what I could’ve done differently, who could’ve saved me and all that.”

“It’s not eternity, you know. When a person dies here, they’re reborn in the living world. You’ll forget everything from here too, I reckon, and start fresh, like you said. The beat goes on.” 

“So I’d forget ever meeting you?” Rangiku frowns. The branch beneath them creaks as she swings her legs around to sit more comfortably against the trunk of the tree. From here they have a landscape-perfect view of the sun setting over the mountain in Kuraraima, one of the tallest peaks in the Rukongai offering up the most beautiful scenery in their own backyard. 

“Yeah, probably,” Gin says and then falls backwards, catching himself on the branch with his scabbed knees so he can hang upside down and let all his cold blood rush to his head. Rangiku wonders how he can be so damn blasé about it -- doesn’t he care about her? 

“That sucks,” she says lamely. Although there is a chance that this is not their first time meeting and forgetting each other, that thought is not any more comforting. 

“I kinda like the idea,” Gin replies, letting his words dangle in the air beside him. “I’m not crazy about eternity, or anything that keeps me in one place for too long. The cycle is forever, I guess, but the scenery’s always changing, so I don’t mind that.” 

“Well I like the scenery here,” Rangiku proffers. They’ve sat up in this same tree hundreds of times now, watching the same sun set in the exact same spot each night, but somehow it’s always different. The colors change daily, from burning red to warm yellow to rich people purple to sugary pink. The clouds, if they’re there, can range from thin fraying threads to rolling cotton mountains. Sometimes the sun is all but extinguished in the gray blanket of the atmosphere and there are no stars nor light left to guide them back home once it’s dark.

“And I’m not saying I don’t,” Gin replies. “I just don’t want to look at it _forever_. There’s so much else out there to see, Rangiku. Other districts, like whole other worlds. There are oceans, and those mountains there, and snow so cold you can actually feel it. And the Sereitei… Real cities. And there’s not just Soul Society; everything in the living world, too.”

“I didn’t know you were such an adventurer,” Rangiku says in an amused way, but it makes surprising sense -- Gin’s tendency to wander off, how he can’t seem to sit still. All that restless energy. Even now, he’s swinging along the branch, bark scraping the soft backs of his knees and daring him to fall. 

“It’s like we have this giant game board in front of us, with barely any rules, and infinite chances. It’d be stupid not to play on it at least a little,” he explains, his voice a little tight from the heat in his head. The sun set has officially begun, and he drops from the branch, catching himself on the one below and turning to face tonight’s rose and lilac sky. “I just hate being bored, ya know?”

“Only boring people get bored,” she teases. Ever since she met Gin, her life has been full of adventure and excitement. He always keeps her busy, and she’s never once felt bored beside him. Does he not feel the same?

***

Another night where Gin wakes up and finds Rangiku crying. Quietly, into her sleeve like she’s trying to hide it, but her sniffling is unmistakable and it never fails to wake Gin up. Not that he’s an incredibly heavy sleeper, he can’t allow himself to be out here, but whenever Rangiku cries, he knows.

He doesn’t exactly know why she cries, and he’s never bothered to ask. He has a hunch that missing part of his soul would leave him feeling a little empty inside, too. Aching, probably, desperate for something he can’t identify. It’d be too quiet without that voice in his head. Regardless, the perceived sensation is simply speculation because there’s really no way for him to understand something so intimately complex secondhand. If it meant fewer nights of tears, he would happily learn to share that pain with her. 

This is her second time crying today. Earlier, she slipped from the crumbling garden wall they’d been scaling and took a pretty solid fall onto the gravel on the other side. It must’ve hurt. The pilfered squash and tomatoes went rolling and her eyes started watering as the old man came around the corner shouting, but Gin simply dragged her to her feet and sent her running away from the house before they both got decked. The swelling in Gin’s face had already gone down. Surely she must be over it by now. 

“Hey, Rangiku.”

“Oh, Gin,” she sniffs, unaware that he was awake beside her. “What is it?” 

“You’re crying,” he says, like obviously. “And I can’t sleep.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, and wipes her eyes.

“You ain’t got nothing to be sorry for.” It’s not her fault, after all. There’s nothing she can do, and apparently nothing Gin can do either. Every time she cries he can’t help but feel useless, and he’d give anything to make that feeling go away. “I’m just saying. If you’re up, I might as well be up, too.”

“No, it’s okay. I’m okay.” Such a liar. “You can go back to sleep.” 

“Hard with all that whining and sniffling you’re doing. Stop it already.”

“Well, distract me, then. Tell me a story, or something funny.”

“I ain’t no storyteller.”

“I’m going to cry all night otherwise,” she threatens, and starts sniffling, heaving her shoulders and wailing exaggeratedly. In doing so, she makes herself laugh and Gin smiles. 

“See, you don’t need me.”

“You always say that,” Rangiku groans, annoyed. “You know it’s not true.”

“It is,” Gin insists. “You don’t need me for anything, Rangiku. In fact, you’d probably be better off without me.” Nothing he’s ever done has been for her, after all. It’s always been about him, for him. It’s always been some sort of attempt to absolve himself for whatever he did that made her want to stay in a place that only ever brought her harm. If she hadn’t been there at that time, at that place, chasing after him… she could’ve kept her soul intact, could’ve stayed pure without ever knowing Gin. “But,” he sighs, “I’m glad you keep me around.” 

“Gin…” Without him, Rangiku would be dead, wouldn’t she? Or she’d be as good as dead. Surely he knows it, but she still has the urge to tell him and have him know she means it. Unfortunately it’s hard to be sentimental when he’s only giving her the back of his head. 

“Just go to bed, Rangiku. We can talk in the morning, okay? We’ll go to the swamp, and catch dragonflies, and pick some horsetail for dinner, and you can talk and tell me all about your feelings, alright? How’s that sound?”

“Really?” Rangiku brightens and wipes the last tear from her eye. Distractions have never been as sweet as with Gin. Climbing trees, rolling down hills, running for their lives -- it’s simple pleasures, and it’s amazing how the shit they have to do to get from day to day turns into these delicious little dalliances and miniscule adventures. Rangiku could be mucking a barn of sheep shit and rotten hay for a few measly Kan and she’s be smiling, singing as long as Gin is at her side. “I’d like that.”

“Too bad,” Gin barks out a laugh. “I’m going to Reijitaji in the morning. Gonna see about getting us some shoes. You’ll be on your own, probably ‘til Friday.”

It’s hard for Rangiku to be upset at this taunting lie. Gin often spins wonderful tales of adventure and idyllic days for her to lie her head and set her sights on, and then rips them out from under her with a satisfied grin. Not only is she used to it, but this foolish plan has been replaced with a purpose, a journey to get them something they’ve always wanted. So instead of pouting, Rangiku fights a smile. Next to no one in their district wears shoes; they’ll be special for once. “You have a shit sense of humor, you know that?”

“So you’ve said. You’ll be alright with me gone?”

“Of course,” she says, pulling her blanket back up to her chin and rolling away from Gin. “Who needs you, anyway?”

***

Weather in the Rukongai is unpredictable. The forces of nature reflect the constant shift of souls and energy from one world to the next and work to compensate for imbalances, leaving no room for consistency across the wide-ranging districts. Gin has seen it all -- tornadoes and dust storms and hail the size of gooseberries. There’s sleet and monsoons and scorching summers that singe his skin if he’s out for more than five minutes, turning him red and raw as he wanders the woods. Once, there was even an earthquake.

They’re thankful for the wind storm that’s brewing around them now, moving the hot air around so they don’t stifle in the ascending heat. Gin returns home, sweat collecting all over his body and finds the house dark, empty and thankfully cool. He drops his bounty -- some thistle and bracken, a few handfuls of shimeji mushrooms -- just inside the door and collapses beside it. The wind howls outside. He could go for a nap. Instead, he crawls to the porch and whistles for Rangiku, who whistles back from somewhere behind the tree line. 

“You’re getting pretty good at that,” he says when she emerges, her arms full of kindling. 

“I’ve been practicing,” she boasts as she strolls past him. She tries to show off and whistle a whole song as she adds the wood to the pile, but the wind overpowers her lungs and steals the sound right out from between her lips. She drops down beside Gin to watch the leaves and pine needles whip across their yard.

The leafy branches above wave frantically to the clouds rolling across the gray blue backdrop of sky and the space not filled with the sound of rushing wind is supplemented by the angry squeaking and creaking of trees rubbing together overhead. In the distance they can hear a low, bellowing crack as a branch finally gives out, exhausted from swaying back and forth, back and forth in the crisp gales. 

“I’d hate to be a bird right now,” Gin says. 

“I’d hate to be a bird any time, not just during a windstorm.”

“Really?” he asks incredulously. 

“Why do you sound so surprised?”

“You wouldn’t want to fly? Get to see the world from up there? Seems like something you’d be into.”

“Nah,” Rangiku says, “I’d get lost.” 

“You’d be fine,” Gin laughs. “I ain’t never seen you get lost out here, or turned around or nothing. And wouldn’t seeing everything at once from above make it easier?” As intuitive and perceptive as he is, orienteering does not come naturally to him. All of his navigating relies on familiar landmarks and muscle memory -- the fact that he’s been getting lost in these woods for years. Rangiku’s natural sense of direction far outmatches his own. 

“Maybe. Still, I think I’d prefer staying on the ground,” she decides. “What about you? Would you wanna fly?” 

“It could be fun. I really wouldn’t mind getting a new angle on this place, either -- that’d be cool. I’ve been looking at the same tree trunks and rocks and dirt for years now.”

“How many years?” Rangiku asks. She can’t recall Gin ever telling her how long he had been dead. The way he moves through the forest and slinks across the market would lead her to believe that he was born in these districts, if such a thing were possible out here. Gin still looks like a kid, but the ethics of place he has for his Rukongai home rivals that of a village elder.

“I don’t know,” he says after a moment of trying to tally winter melts and persimmon harvests, broad strokes of passing time. It’s got to be at least a decade by now, but he really can’t be sure. There was a rather glum period in his life where Gin didn’t bother to count the days, didn’t bother to appreciate each passing moment and look forward to the next one. Kinda like Rangiku. He had resigned himself to the motions, moving automatically through the stages of each day as if he were a little machine, gears and pistons powered by apathy. Every now and then something would happen, like breaking a few ribs getting attacked by a boar or meeting a girl who would change his life, and he’d start to feel alive again, but there’s no telling how much time passed between him forgetting the date and then bothering to relearn it. 

“Must’ve been a long time,” Rangiku says softly, trying to imagine a stretch so long you lost sight of where it began. 

Gin shrugs. “It’s a lot better with company, that’s for sure. I’m glad you keep me around.” 

“Yeah,” she agrees, “me, too.” 

They’re quiet, watching the trees sway before them. There’s a crack and crash, this one closer, as another branch bites the dust. 

“Hey, Rangiku, if you were a bird, what do you think you’d be?”

“I told you, I don’t want to be a bird.”

“Come on,” he cajoles. “Just answer the question.”

“You first. You must already have your answer, right? Why don’t you give me a second to think.”

“I’d be a shrike,” Gin answers matter-of-fact. Then he breaks into a wide grin and says, “I think you’d be a peacock; real pretty -- beautiful -- but useless. They don’t fly, either.”

She slugs him on the arm for that one, but vanity makes her pull the punch the slightest bit -- he did call her beautiful, after all.

***

For the hundredth time he asks, “Wanna race?”

“All the way back home?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re on.”

And for the hundredth time, she finds herself stuck looking at his back.

***

It’s September again, with waves of late-August heat still rolling through the air. The rocks in the bottom of the stream are round and cool beneath their feet, tiny pebbles wedging their way between their toes. The water flowing around their calves has been warmed by the sun, running north, away from the center of Soul Society and carrying with it the runoff of half the other districts along the way. 

Gin and Rangiku use this water to wash their clothes, scrubbing and beating the dirt from the fabric along the embankment while they muddle happily through folk songs they picked up in town. When they’re satisfied with the state of their clothing, they hang the yukatas on a tree branch to dry out a bit while they waste time in the water, skipping stones and singing and trying to catch minnows with their hands. 

Rangiku is a lovely singer; Gin can’t carry a tune worth shit. His voice breaks, and Rangiku giggles, a sweet little sound like bubbles on the water. Gin cleaves right through the surface tension and sends a wave in her direction, spraying the golden hair she had been trying not to get wet. They splash and play in an unabashed nakedness that comes from a close bond and still innocent age.

“What do you want for your birthday, Rangiku?”

The stone he throws plunks heavily into the water, too bulky to skip across the river. Rangiku’s hair is growing out ragged, cut with the same worn out blade that they use to prepare their dinners, and it hangs in uneven tendrils around her face as she bends over and runs her hands along the bottom of the stream, looking for a suitable rock to skip.

“Nothing,” she answers as she stands up. There’s a content smile on her face, a drop of water trailing down her cheek. “I’ve got everything I need.” Gin watches her flick her wrist, expertly sending the rock bouncing across the slow-moving water.

“But if you could have anything, what would you want?”

Sandals without holes, a yukata that isn’t threadbare and poorly mended, a comb for her hair, a real bedroll, a washboard for their clothes -- there’s any number of material things she could ask for and it wouldn’t sound superfluous. They’re used to living with less, and most days it doesn’t bother them, though they sometimes dream of luxuries they can’t afford. 

“A whole castella cake,” she says after a moment, “all to myself. With honey, and candied ginger.”

Two days later, Gin disappears, as he is wont to do. The spot beside Rangiku is empty when she wakes up and she can feel tears burning the back of her eyes. Gin always comes back, but each time he leaves she can’t help but assume the worst and dread the day he never returns. It’s a bad habit of his, leaving without saying goodbye, and it’s the only thing she can’t stand about him. 

Another day passes and he misses her birthday, and she finally lets the tears fall. It’s too quiet in their cabin, too cold at night without him there. Tired of waiting after three whole days, Rangiku takes to the empty forest, wandering how she guesses Gin might. It’s a mystery to her where he goes and what he does, and especially how he does it. They all arrived in this world alone, dumped unceremoniously in the dirt like their lives didn’t matter. After finding such a happy salvation in another person, someone who values her and cares for her and can always make her laugh, Rangiku can’t bear to be alone again.

The forest is beautiful and relatively undisturbed, but it feels too large for just one person. When the sun starts to set, changing the angle of the amber light filtering through the leaves, Rangiku returns to their home, a full waterskin slung over her shoulder. She nearly drops it and spills the contents all over the floor when a thin, teasing voice greets her from within the darkness of the house.

“Where ya been?”

“Gin! You asshole, you startled me.”

“My bad,” he says with a sheepish grin. “Sorry it took me so long.” In his outstretched hand is a large slice of sponge cake, wrapped in blue cloth and sticky with a melted honey glaze. “It started out as a whole cake,” he fibs, “but I got a little hungry on the way back.” The piece was so perfectly square and pretty in its wrapping that Gin couldn’t bring himself to take even a single bite despite his hunger. It’s a little squished from his journey, but he’s sure the taste is still the same. Even if she offered him some, he would refuse it. It’s her gift, and even though it’s not a whole cake, she should have it all to herself. 

“Happy birthday, Rangiku.”


	4. Matriculation

Rangiku wakes up alone again. The space beside her on the floor is empty, not a trace of warmth left behind. There’s only a single pair of worn-out sandals by the door and a fresh inch of snow has concealed any footprints Gin might have left behind. Even if she went looking for him, she wouldn’t find him, not until he was ready to be found. Gin taught her how to open up her senses and track spiritual pressure ages ago, but he conveniently forgot to mention that he knows how to mask his own. He’s disappeared from her awareness and all Rangiku can sense is the bite of ice outside and an equally bleak emptiness surrounding her. Gin’s presence usually warms her, but now she just feels cold, inside and out. 

Fighting off the sleep that tugs on her eyelids and limbs, she waits. Patiently, because she knows he’ll always come back. Snow drifts in through the gap in the door while wind slips through the cracks in the siding. Rangiku watches the flakes melt on the dirt floor and pulls her blanket around her tighter.

Finally, she senses him. It’s a peripheral flicker, a little itch of warmth, and it grows into a welcome crescendo with each step he takes towards their home. And then it weakens, gets softer as he keeps on walking. He must not be ready to come home just yet, but Rangiku can’t wait any longer.

“Gin!” Snow is blundering through the sky in big fat flakes, clinging to the ends of her hair and leaving wet traces on her cheeks as she runs out of the one-room house. “Where have you been?” At first, it’s hard to distinguish her friend through the snow and wind with his silver hair and washed-out yukata being swallowed by the gray air and white blizzard that surrounds them. There’s a black mantle across his shoulders, dark as the night that threatens to consume him. “Those are shinigami clothes, aren’t they… Where’d you get something like that, Gin?”

“I made up my mind,” he says suddenly, coming to a halt in the snow. Eerily calm, but he still hasn’t met Rangiku’s gaze. “I’m gonna become a shinigami.” 

Weeks ago -- or had it been merely days? -- they had entertained the idea when they heard about the entrance exams for Shino’o Academy. They played around with the thought of having a safe place to sleep every night, all the food they could eat, a modicum of security and control over their lives. For the sake of argument, they bemoaned the long hours and the ugly uniforms. They would be expected to follow rules, something they weren’t used to. They also knew once they were accepted as shinigami, they would be expected to die as such. Brave, noble warriors maintaining peace and balance between worlds that had left them alone and hungry in the dirt. 

“I’m gonna become a shinigami and change things,” Gin says, and he pulls the kosode top around him tighter. It almost reaches his knees. “I’m gonna make it so you don’t have to cry anymore, Rangiku.”

Gin hates it when Rangiku cries. He doesn’t say anything, but Rangiku knows, and she tries valiantly to hide her tears and convince herself there’s no reason for them. There’s a roof over her head, even though it leaks; she has a friend by her side, even though he’s always running off without her. Because of Gin, she has a birthday and the chance to celebrate it for many more years to come. The only thing she can’t stand is the thought of doing so alone. 

“Okay,” she sniffs, telling herself that the stinging in her eyes is from the cold and not from tears. “Then I’m going to become one, too.” Rangiku says it, and it’s decided. “I’ll join the Academy and become a shinigami, too.” It’s useless to argue it, and not just because Rangiku is the most stubborn person Gin has ever met this side of existence, but because Gin doesn’t _want_ to argue it. It makes sense that he would want to protect her, keep her away from the Academy and shinigami and especially himself, since it’ll surely be dangerous and all, but he knows the threat of danger has never stopped her before. When Gin finally turns to face her, the first thing she notices is not the dark red splatter on his cheek or the cut on his lip, but the proud look in his eyes. “I’ll get strong,” she promises, “and you won’t have to protect me anymore.”

Gin scrubs away the blood from his face and she never asks about it. They exchange the warmth of their fire for the warmth of the shinigami’s robe, saving their meager stockpile of wood and nestling into each other beneath the extra layer, brushing their feet together to keep their toes warm. Later, Rangiku will laugh off the moment and the weight of their words in the winter air, but she will stand by her decision. She’ll chide Gin for thinking she would let him leave her behind so he could have all the fun in the Sereitei. Gin will smile. It could take years to get back what was taken from his best friend. It could be tedious, dangerous. It could be any number of things and he is prepared to face them all. What he has to do will not be fun, but having Rangiku at his side might just make it bearable. 

Together, they prepare tirelessly for the entrance exams. They really can’t afford to wait another year. They practice each day, meditating and sparring until they’re exhausted -- physically, mentally, spiritually and there are bruises all down their arms. It’s challenging and grueling, especially without a plan or any real idea about what they are doing. But the two of them are resourceful, and bright, and determined as all hell. They build endurance and flexibility. They hone their senses. Rangiku’s reflexes improve and Gin all but masters control of his reiryoku. 

When winter finally gives way to spring and the date for the entrance exam appears on the horizon, Gin and Rangiku say goodbye to their little house and head out, nothing but the clothes on their backs and some dried persimmons for the road. It takes almost two weeks to reach the Sereitei from their district in the fifties. Their stamina has grown and they walk for hours without stopping. 

Along the way, Gin finds them work helping to build a split rail fence for some guy in the upper thirties. The man watches them from the doorway of his house as they dig holes along the property he’s delineated. He’s got greasy hair, slicked back from his ugly face. The big round belly and secretive smile make Gin instantly wary. Living conditions may be better in the inner districts, but people are all the same and if he tries to stiff them, Gin will have no problem killing him. 

It wouldn’t be his first. 

“Focus on the center of your palm. A heavy, black dot,” Rangiku recites as she whittles down the end of a rail. “Breathe. Visualize your reiryoku, your energy. Your life force. Let it collect--”

“What do you visualize it as?” Gin interrupts, his curiosity tickling him like the line of sweat at the top of his brow. He shovels another heap of dirt to the side. 

“I see it as water,” she answers, “but it’s not cold or anything. It’s warm, like a puddle that’s been sitting in the sun.” Gin snickers at her analogy and she sticks out her tongue. “_Anyway,_ I think about how it moves, flowing smoothly in all directions. And how it pools in my hand, like when you scoop water out of a basin.”

“Show me,” Gin instructs. He pauses in his digging, aware that the man is leering at them from across the yard. He spits. Rangiku sets down the pole and extends a hand. She takes several deep breaths and then, in a flare of energy, produces a bright, brilliant orb in her palm. It’s small but still nearly blinding in its pure white light. It’s beautiful and more than enough to get her into the Academy.

“Good.” Gin does the same, scaling the size and intensity of his energy to match hers. “Now try this.” The light in his hand fizzles into almost nothing as he cups his other palm over it, compressing it down. When he opens his hands, he pulls the ball of energy apart, stretching it out in front of him. Even with his arms spread wide, the flow of energy is strong, flickering and jumping as he manipulates it for Rangiku. There’s a scowl on her face as she watches him juggle the light back and forth, but Gin knows by the dip in her brow that she’s merely concentrating. The disgruntled scowl will come later if it proves too difficult.

It takes a few tries, and once with Gin’s hands wrapped around hers, letting his own reiryoku flow through her so she can get a feel for it, but eventually Rangiku manages to mimic Gin, stretching and compressing the crackling spirit energy between her hands. The scowl disappears and she’s grinning, so proud of herself. She’s always been a fast learner and Gin says so. The light is dimmer and the reiryoku thinner, but that’s not Rangiku’s fault, and it doesn’t seem to bother her in the slightest as she easily manipulates the energy in her palms. 

They smile at one another, basking in their simple success and their power until their provider yells at them to get back to work. They finish the fence line the following afternoon and Gin watches the man count out their coin. He’s surprisingly fair, and offers to let them sleep another night on his property. When he sneaks up on them later that evening, after their fire has died down and he thinks they’re asleep, his fat, greasy fingers twitching, Gin kills him. He drags him inside and props him up in his house before raiding his coin purse. They leave the next morning, pockets full, without a word. 

Life goes on around them. Things they’ve never seen or will ever see again manifest before their very eyes as they wander through the afterlife together, stopping every now and again for food and fun -- a man selling pet monkeys next to his watermelons; women dyeing wool; an honest to goodness blacksmith, making daggers and axes. They pass through a few festivals and are amazed at the deities they’ve never heard of and rituals they get to participate in. There’s less garbage in the streets, more smiles. The sun sets a different way each night and chases new clusters of stars into the black and blue sky of the Rukongai. Each stopping place brings its own charm and culture, its own little adventure, and while Gin can’t speak for Rangiku, this may be the most content he’s ever been. 

There are only a few areas that warrant the title of “city,” where commerce and comradery fill the streets and having an honest livelihood doesn’t seem so out of reach. There’s people and wealth everywhere you look, evident in the state of their clothes and their sandals and the presence of shinigami at the boundary lines. Gin can tell they're getting close; he’s been counting each crumbling wall and posted sign that they pass, and they’re in the single digits now, garnering a few shifty gazes from the lucky inhabitants. At least they’ve got shoes. 

The few nights they spend in the communal barracks waiting for the enrollment period to officially begin are rough, and Gin gets into more than a few fights, but the entrance exam goes smoothly. They must take it separately, but they are evaluated in identical fashions. Can they read and write? Rangiku can, and she’s taught Gin how, reciting and tracing the characters over and over in the dirt outside their homely shack. Do they have any spiritual power? They sure do. Can they control it? They can, and surprisingly well. How do they fare with some basic math and logic problems? On average, fairly well; they’re not incompetent. Can they follow instructions and respect their superiors? If they must. The last piece is a psychological evaluation and that’s the only time Gin even considers breaking a sweat, unaware of just how much the Gotei and Onmitsukido and Kido Corps are willing to let slide for the sake of strength.

They pass, of course. 

The first few weeks of classes are blissful. Both Gin and Rangiku manage to score high enough on the entrance exam to earn them a place in the first class, where they sit side-by-side and exchange surreptitious glances and funny faces when they grow weary of the lectures. They ignore the sidelong glances from the older, nobler students and pretend they can’t hear any disparaging remarks about Rukongai rats. They eat meals together, mostly in silence because they’re both too busy shoveling the hot food down their throats to talk. Rice and bits of fish fly across the table as they laugh together, at nothing in particular. After dinner, Gin hangs out in Rangiku’s dormitory until curfew, listening to her recount the drama from the day’s kido classes or gush about a cute boy that she beat down in a sparring match.

Then they have their first exam, and everything changes. 

It’s a short evaluation for both hakudo and zanjutsu with a handful of spectating professors present, and in fourteen seconds flat, Gin’s sparring partner is unconscious on the floor. The room is silent as he cracks his knuckles. No one besides the instructor seems entirely eager to put a kendo sword in his hands after that, but when he does, it only takes eight seconds for the match to be decided.

His potential awakened and realized, Gin is yanked from his seat beside Rangiku and thrown headfirst into a higher-level curriculum. At the end of the first month, he is assigned an asauchi and granted permission to carry it with him at all times, even in classes and at meals. All of the faculty seem eager to see him call on his zanpakuto spirit as quickly as possible. Not that he needs it; even without the imprint of his soul, Gin broadcasts lethality and confidence whenever he swings his sword. Every other week he finds himself taking one assessment or another, and apparently his progress is astounding. Rapidly advancing through the curriculum, he joins fifth- and sixth-year students in their classes and training, even participating in several mock missions in the living world. By the end of the academic year, he has achieved his shikai. They ask him to take the graduation exam, and while he does not pass with flying colors, he does indeed pass. 

They call him a genius. 

And then he’s gone, whisked off to the Gotei 13 without so much as a goodbye. Rat bastard did it again, Rangiku scowls. Her angry scowl. Brought her along just to leave her behind. The home they shared is probably gone, and Rangiku can’t bear to go back there alone, anyway, so she makes a new place for herself at the Academy. The dormitories aren’t as lonely on breaks as she would expect -- there are dozens of other Rukongai strays with enough spiritual energy and brains to know what to do with it and no other place that they would want to call home. Even though there’s a Gin-sized hole in her life, she pushes on. Keeps herself busy, makes new friends. Studying, training, growing -- she gets stronger, she can feel it, even though it is more grueling than training back in the Rukongai. 

The entrance exam may have been easy, but as the years drag on, Rangiku finds herself struggling, like there’s something that just won’t click for her. All the information, the motions and incantations, make sense. They come naturally, but there is an incongruence between her power and her execution, a friction within her that she just can’t smooth out. It’s aggravating beyond belief, even more so because there’s no one that will understand. Gin is the only one who really knows her power, who knows how to teach her so she doesn’t get frustrated and support her without patronizing her. 

Of course, Rangiku is as stubborn as she’s ever been, and she works tirelessly to catch up to her friend, though she makes it look like she couldn’t care less. A promise hangs around her throat and she recants Gin’s words over and over -- he’s going to change things; she won’t have to cry anymore. So far, nothing has changed, and she still feels empty and alone. The friends she has feel superficial, the strides she makes in class seem inconsequential, and she still can’t help crying at night. She moves on, but she never forgets.


	5. Fealty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> its aizen loving hours bby

The area behind the captain’s quarters is supposed to be off limits, even when the captain is away. It’s supposed to be a private garden, a sanctum within the Fifth Division that remains untainted by the lower-ranking dreck. It is supposed to be empty when Aizen makes his rounds, but it isn’t. Someone has made themselves right at home, eating a handful of fruit as they lie back in the grass and let out small, prodding curls of reiatsu. They’ve been waiting with knowledge that he would come, but the lieutenant is not alone when he finally arrives. There’s another shinigami trailing behind him, someone whose presence does not disturb the intruder in the slightest. With his hand outstretched, Aizen tells the third seat to wait as he alone approaches.

“You there,” he calls. Aizen’s tone is authoritative and even, still jovial, probably for the other officer’s sake. Something hangs in the air that sets Aizen, curious as ever, on edge and entices him to draw closer. An unknown element simply begging to be investigated. “This area is off-limits to all unseated members. What’s your name?” 

“Ichimaru Gin.” The smell of citrus stains his hands and most likely his breath as he answers. It’s an orange, and he’s blithely sucking away the last bits of sweetness from the rind. 

Aizen knows the name. It’s been passed around the Academy and the Gotei for the past few months and holds with it a stunning reputation -- observant, intelligent, and a natural with a sword. Potential that could make any captain interested, though Shinji had seemed rather disenchanted when Aizen had informed him of the new recruit, “The one they were all calling a genius.”

“That’s me.”

“What do you think you’re doing here?”

“Just out looking for mischief.” The tip of his tongue flicks out to lick up the traces of sweet juice from his palm. And he smiles again, young and charmingly devious. 

“Mischief?” Aizen can’t disguise the amusement in his voice. He’s no stranger to mischief himself and he has a hunch that this child already knows that because he’s nodding, chucking the orange rind to the side. Why else would he be here, standing so defiantly in front of him, mirroring Aizen’s amused grin? 

“Narita-san,” Aizen calls suddenly over his shoulder, his smile replaced with stern superiority. The officer behind him snaps to attention and approaches. “Detain him, please. He refuses to comply with his commanding officer; we’ll bring him inside and charge him with trespassing and insubordination.” The smile on the kid’s face is interesting, if not downright unnerving. “Treat him as a hostile.” Aizen wonders if the third seat can feel the bloodlust in the air. It’s subtle, but speaks to a great level of restraint; it’s a challenge and the poor officer is just a little too obtuse to notice it -- he draws his zanpakuto. Foolish bravery bred of complacency. 

“Yes, Aizen-fukutaichou,” he says, and takes two steps towards the kid on the lawn.

It’s over in an instant. 

Swift, efficient, and brutal. Not the most tidy slaughter Aizen has seen, but somehow charming in its own way. Their blades touch only twice before the third seat’s throat is slit. He couldn’t even make a sound. It’s elegant -- a neat, precise slash despite the grandiose swing of the kid’s arm. Seamless. The attack is rich with a smooth but pointed killing intent that solidifies and intensifies as the boy cuts him down, collarbone to hip. Blood sprays and the third seat gurgles out an ugly sound. Aizen watches the young prodigy stab him through the chest without a second thought, nearly splitting him in half with a single decisive slice.

“Very nice.” The former third seat collapses. Dead before he hits the ground, his corpse lands heavy on the lawn with shades of red spilling all across his chest and the grass. “You’re better than I heard you were. Again, tell me your name,” Aizen prompts. The grip on the boy’s wakizashi is loose, casual. He clearly doesn’t feel threatened by Aizen, or by anything for that matter. That confidence shall be his undoing.

“Gin.” The kid just grins at him, blood quickly drying in his silver hair. “Ichimaru Gin.” 

“And how was our third seat?”

“Completely useless,” he scoffs, feigning offense. “What a joke.” 

“Is that so? That’s good to know.” 

“Mmhm.” The boy, Gin, merely grunts his acknowledgement as he squats down beside the cooling body. He wipes his red-wet blade brusquely on the leg of the _former_ third seat’s hakama, the only part of his uniform not already soaked with blood. It doesn’t clean it completely, he’ll have to finish polishing it later, but it gets the point across. 

“You have no reservations about killing your comrade, do you?” Aizen asks. 

Gin shakes his head and says, “Nope,” the thin smile a fixed feature on his face. “I’m a snake, Aizen-san. My skin’s cold, and I ain’t got feelings. I slither around, looking for prey with the tip of my tongue, and if I find something I like, I swallow it whole.” 

Two days later, Ichimaru Gin is appointed to the third seat. He doesn’t ask questions. Narita’s disappearance is easy enough to cover up as a dishonorable act of desertion. Moving the body to the Rukongai slums and filling out the proper reports is a hassle for Aizen, but it’s worth it to have someone like Ichimaru Gin close by and under his control. It takes nearly a week to finalize the paperwork and adjust the boy’s salary before his promotion is more than nominal. Then he jumps right into his duties, acquiescing to his orders with half a nod and a drawling, “Yessir.” 

The reports he fills out are detailed, but not overly wordy, though they’re penned in an unsteady, unpracticed hand. Each assignment is tended to promptly and efficiently executed. No time is wasted. There’s leadership potential housed in his small frame and a casually confident voice that commands attention when brought up from somewhere deep in his skinny chest. He learns fast, asks questions when he needs to, discusses matters in a mature and competent way, and does it all with that leering smile plastered on his face. 

By all accounts, Ichimaru Gin is a model shinigami. 

But for all his genius, all his perceptiveness and instinct, he still lacks experience. He has yet to encounter adversity, a worthy adversary. It becomes clear after the first month. All of his battles so far have been more akin to simple slaughter, so one-sided they were. He needs a challenge, someone or something that is equally as cunning and ingenious as he is with the strength to back it up. 

This is something Aizen can easily provide. 

At some points, it is no more than a foul gray and white stain on Gin’s periphery, the monster’s speed far greater than he anticipated. Its reflexes are as sharp as his own and it has much more mass to throw around. It’s equipped with a long- and medium-range attack, and its Cero packs a real punch. It is Gin’s first Adjuchas, hand-picked and primed by Aizen. One of his more promising marks.

And even that is no match for the kid. 

Appearing as little more than silver flashes of hair and sword, each of his maneuvers is fluid and serpentine, with his black sleeves billowing around him like the hood of a cobra. Confident and dangerous. Striking decisively from behind, Gin splits the mask in half with a well-timed extension of his zanpakuto. Its name is Shinsou, Aizen learns. A godly spear.

There is a pleased smile on his face as he descends from his perch above the scene and approaches his third seat. “How was it fighting an adjuchas?” he asks.

“You saw--,” Gin gestures vaguely at the dissolving body, “he put up a real fight at first, but then he sorta gave up.”

“Maybe he simply grew tired of playing your game.” Aizen surely would have.

“Aw, no way he could tell I was stringing him along…” 

“You could’ve gotten yourself killed, you know,” Aizen says without bothering to mask his indifference to that fact.

“You don’t believe that,” Gin replies. “You wouldn’t have brought me out here if you thought I was just gonna die on ya.” A smile breaks across his face as he realizes something. “You would’ve just killed me yourself, right?”

He’s right, but damned if Aizen will admit to it beyond a delayed blink and wry smile. Even still, he finds his hand drifting to the hilt of Kyoka Suigetsu. 

“You’re good,” he says. It’s simple curiosity that makes him draw his sword. Gin has intrigued him with all his cunning and talent and overflowing potential. Even more enticing is that almost scary easy-going nature of his. It’s like he’s playing a game that only he knows the rules to and he enjoys watching everyone lose. It seems like a game that Aizen would enjoy; he wants in on it. 

“That’s what they tell me,” Gin replies, reaffirming his one-handed grip on his own weapon. There’s begrudging resolve on his face, his lips almost as tight a line as the one he now treads. While he’s sure it’s just another test, some personal inventory of his skills and abilities, he knows that crossing swords with a man like Aizen is… intimidating. Frightening. There’s no assurance the man won’t kill him. Certainly he could do it. 

Shinsou screams in Gin’s hands. 

It sounds condescending when Aizen says, “And you know it’s true,” all casual, conversational, as if he wasn’t starting a fight. He’s fast to approach him, fast to swing his sword, but he sees that Gin can read those first few moves. “Your eyes are sharp,” he notes. But not sharp enough to catch the shifting of weight to his heel and respond in time; Aizen sends him flying. “And your reflexes are quick.” Gin lands on his feet, but he crumples a little with the force he wasn’t fully prepared to absorb. When Aizen flash-steps to his side, Gin steps away to maintain the distance between them. “You’re fast,” Aizen observes. Surprisingly fast, but he’s no master. But of course they both knew that going into his.

“And you’re stubborn.” 

The boy chooses to challenge him, coming back for more each time he’s knocked down. With strength that belies his adolescent figure, Gin stands up to the weight of Aizen’s sword and his spiritual pressure admirably, though it’s clear he’s starting to hurt. Even as his pace slows and his swing weakens, he keeps on smiling and bouncing around with those grandiose movements, never letting his guard down. Aizen is relieved that he avoids each fatal blow he flings at him out of irritation or amusement, but he’s seen enough. Before Gin can swing his wakizashi once more, Aizen raises a hand between them, meaning to call for the end of their sparring. Of course Gin leaps at him, unable to resist the opening. 

It’d be easy to side-step and end the whole thing, but Aizen can’t resist either. 

“Hado 22: Kojitsukeru.” A shockwave of spiritual pressure radiates from the outstretched hand, the force ripping through Gin like sound through water. The brisance of the little kido explosion echoes in every follicle and raises all the silver hairs on his head and arms. An earthquake ripples through each of Gin’s bones and it’s almost enough to make him drop his sword like he does to his knees.

“Ouch,” Gin gasps, clutching his chest theatrically. His teeth are chattering. “Kido… Not my forte.” The ostentatious spiritual attacks always require more control than Gin could care to exert. Even though they demand finesse and present as a work of art, they almost always end up being some gaudy display of reiatsu. They’re too flashy; not his style. Every man’s got his own aesthetics, after all. “That shit’ll be the death of me.”

“You enjoy the game,” Aizen posits as he return his sword to his hip. 

Gin takes a breath. “I do.”

“You’re strong.”

“I am.” There’s no need to be modest, even with the blood in his mouth and the labored breaths tearing through his chest. To prove his point, Gin climbs to his feet and sheathes his sword.

“You will probably grow even stronger.”

Gin smiles. “I will.”

The child speaks to him as an equal, confident enough to parrot his answers back at him like sly quips when it’s simply the truth. The temptation to crush him right there is divine. For all his brilliance and perception, all that strength and resilience, he still knows nothing of power. Probably has no real idea what he’s getting himself into.

“And what if I told you that I could give you power beyond that of a mere shinigami?” Aizen asks.

“I wouldn’t want it.” It sounds like an instinctual response, an automatic rejection -- quick and without thought, it’s probably a reaction that has been engrained in him by years of deceit and distrust. It’s clear that things never come to this kid without strings attached, and to him, nothing that can be so freely given is worth having. 

“And why is that?” Aizen can’t help but want to know more. 

Certainly concussed, Gin’s head pounds when he breathes, even in careful measured breaths. At least two of his ribs are broken -- shattered? -- and there’s a slight chance he has punctured a lung; it would only be a matter of time before it collapses. Still, he stays standing, though he speaks a little slower than usual. “I ain’t really in the habit of asking for handouts.” 

“Whoever said this was a handout?”

“Well, you don’t offer something like that without a way to keep it in check, whether through force or manipulation,” Gin reasons. “So either way, you end up falling into some higher power’s trap, am I right?” Aizen fights a smile but the twitch of his lips is confirmation enough. “You know, I think I’d rather just walk in with my eyes open, with my own strength.”

“And your head held high as you did so?”

The boy does not seem particularly prideful when he shrugs and winces, the pained expression momentarily reducing him to no more than an injured child. “I’d probably bow to the higher power instead of trying to fight it and lose. I can help set a mean pit trap.”

What an interesting kid. Each action, his words and emotions -- somehow it all feels raw and honest despite his deflection and dry humor. It’s unexpected and unexplainable, and nothing interests Aizen more than inexplicability. “Is there a higher power that you bow to now?” he asks.

Gin smiles and Aizen can see the blood in his mouth has stained his teeth a gruesome red. “Haven’t found anything worth bowing to yet.”

***

The walk back towards the Sereitei is quiet except for the crunch of sandals on the dirt and the occasional harsh exhale from Gin where the throbbing pain has welled up and spilled over the cage of his ribs. Gin is uncomfortable, but the silence isn’t. There aren’t any expectations, no conventions they are supposed to be following. He doesn’t feel like Aizen needs anything of him in this moment and he certainly doesn’t want or need anything from the man that hurt his friend and beat the shit out of him. One of these days he’s going to kill him, after all.

There are owls and cicadas and starlight surrounding them, and for the first time since moving within those un-scalable white walls, Gin finds himself missing the gentle hum of the Rukongai. The air is different outside the walls, even here in the first few districts where they snuck away for a little swordplay. It’s thin and smells of life -- of sweat and dirt and food cooking and plants growing and animals hunting and people in all walks of life. Gin takes a deep breath and then regrets it when his ribs start protesting. 

“This won’t do,” Aizen says suddenly, chiding his subordinate. 

“What’s that?”

“Sit down. I’m going to fix your ribs. And that black eye… It will do no good to raise questions at the division.”

“Course not.” 

Aizen offers no sort of apology as he awkwardly sets to work fixing the splintered bone beneath Gin’s eye. Neither one knows how to act in each other’s presence yet -- a child prodigy and a dangerous man in veiled cahoots, each secretly plotting their own agenda. What are they supposed to do with each other? 

They sit in silence as the muscles stitch themselves back together and the blood returns to Gin’s veins. It’s the first time he has felt the healing rush of kido flood beneath his skin, revitalizing his cells. It reminds him of the times he would stay out too long in the snow, far past the point at which a normal human soul would succumb to exposure. It makes him jittery.

”Do you ever question the natural order of the world, Ichimaru-kun?” Aizen suddenly breaks the quiet tension with unbelievable ease, posing such a heavy question as if it was no more than an observation on the state of the weather or a formality about paperwork. He feels a shiver run through Gin as the sutures of kido tighten in his eyelid and he blinks involuntarily. 

“I ain’t ever really thought there was anything like order in this world,” he murmurs underneath Aizen’s palm. His breath bounces back warm in his face. He gets another chill. “It’s always been every man for himself, long as I can remember.”

“And is that what you do now -- fight only for yourself?”

“Course,” Gin says, and even though it might not be the answer that Aizen is supposed to hear, he feels like he can’t go wrong with the truth. 

“I suppose there is something noble in that,” Aizen decides.

Gin scoffs, then regrets it. His bones are still tender so he holds onto his ribs and tries again. “Ain’t no one ever used the word ‘noble’ to describe Ichimaru Gin before.” 

“What makes you so certain?” 

“I know what kinda person I am.” It’s fascinating how he oscillates between honesty and deflection, etching out his own unique brand of blithe humor and calculated seriousness. 

Aizen nudges Gin’s hand away and moves the focus of his energy towards Gin’s stomach. Right away he knows that there’s some internal bleeding happening beneath the fractured ribs. It’s a marvel Gin’s been able to keep up this whole time, walking no more than a pace behind Aizen the entire way back to the Sereitei. It’s admirable. 

“I’m glad to have a person like you in my squad,” Aizen says, and he’s not lying.

“Well, I’m honored to be of service to ya, Aizen-san.” 

With a nod, Aizen returns his attention to the blood pooling in Gin’s abdomen and Gin starts wondering what the hell he just agreed to. It’s not clear what all was said between the spaces of their words and weight of their breaths that he failed to hear. Having never met such an orator before, the language of Aizen Sosuke has proved troublesome to learn. Often times, Gin just speaks his mind and hopes for the best; he thinks it amuses Aizen.

As he filters the lost blood through his kido and reintroduces it to the sutured organs, Aizen mentions that Gin is not the only one he is fortunate to have working for him. There is someone else -- not in their squad, but within the Gotei 13 -- that has proved to be both loyal and strong enough to serve him. They are committed with a strong work ethic and even stronger ideals that they are unerringly passionate about. 

“They sound boring,” Gin says, trying to expel the jitters through his tapping feet and twitching fingers. It feels like his insides are a hundred degrees. 

“They are a necessary factor in the equation,” Aizen explains. “When the time is right, you will meet this person. And then the real fun will begin.”

When his ribs are no longer cracked but simply bruised, Aizen pulls Gin back to his feet, a little urgent if anything. They don’t have to be anywhere until tomorrow morning, but they’ve been gone longer than he would like. Arousing suspicion, and all that. Aizen sets off at a brisk pace and Gin falls naturally into place behind him, content to stride in his moonlit shadow all the way back to the division.


	6. Genius

Around the same time that Gin quietly joins the Fifth Division, Aizen has to watch Urahara Kisuke assume the role of captain of the Twelfth Division and admit to himself that even he didn’t see that one coming. 

Of course Aizen _knew_ about him. Urahara Kisuke would be the one man responsible for imprisoning him for the rest of his days should anyone ever learn of his true ideals, so of course he’d done his research. The man came from a branch clan associated with the Shihoin family, nobility twice-removed. He grew up with the family, joined the Gotei 13, and stuck close to the Second Division his whole career. It probably explains why Yoruichi backed him so strongly and had advocated so vocally for his captaincy. Not that he needs the extra support -- Urahara Kisuke is incredibly clever and extremely strong -- he’s a prison warden with the power to cajole and corral those deemed the most potentially dangerous minds of Soul Society, with his bare hands.

He is a man whose brilliance reflects Aizen’s own, though in brighter shades of innocent scientific curiosity, pure fascinations and a questioning nature. Almost cloyingly humble, it’s a glorious veneer over a dangerously fierce intelligence. The warden had discovered nearly all of the spirit observation bugs that Aizen had sent into the Maggot’s Nest with those whom he had played a part in helping to “retire” from the Gotei 13 and if Aizen hadn’t been actively looking, he would never have noticed Urahara investigating. When the warden started prying into the circumstances of a select few inmates’ detainment, Aizen had to work quickly and efficiently to erase any ties that might remain between him and the perceived delinquent. Details even an outstanding officer would overlook would be glaring to Urahara Kisuke -- he was that good. 

Even so, admiration is the furthest thing from Aizen’s mind when he first puts eyes on Urahara Kisuke, meek and disheveled at the door to the captains’ meeting hall. Like he didn’t even think he was supposed to be there. So smart, and yet such an idiot. 

When a minor exodus of squad members takes place because no one in his division had ever signed up for research and development, especially not alongside once-incarcerated inmates, he handles it with poise and dignity. No one is forced to stay, though many choose to do so out of loyalty and respect, and dozens more flock to the division, intrigued by the experimentation and intellectual investment. Most of these eccentric characters find their homes as simple technicians, at lab benches and computer screens, happy to collect samples and run numbers and partake in the scientific process in the presence of a man like Urahara Kisuke. They don’t think about the fact that five years ago, under different circumstances, he could’ve been politely detaining them underground with the rest of the Sereitei’s rejects. 

Now, he is putting those minds to work, rehabilitating them in an environment everyone can capitalize on. Despite the resistance he faces, Urahara Kisuke pushes forward, the unstoppable force tackling the immovable object that is the enduring tradition of the Soul Society. He slaves away, day after day, building a legacy the likes of which the Sereitei has never before seen. When he can manage, Aizen sneaks around and watches him at work, designing and planning and supervising the construction of the Department of Research and Development. 

They’re rather alike, he learns. Of course Aizen believes himself to be infinitely more devious and has much bigger plans for the worlds than improving the quality of lab equipment and Gigai technology, but the dissatisfaction with common knowledge is common to them both. They ask questions and aren’t satisfied with the answers that society wants to give them; they need to know for themselves. It’s fun for them. They both ache to know more, to do more.

Aizen aches to simply know him. Maybe understand him, as well as one can ever really understand another. 

The conversations they could have, the things they could do if they worked together... It makes Aizen’s pulse race. Unattainable heights would be within reach should the two minds ever combine, and that sort of high is enough to make Aizen consider reaching out. But the deliberations are short: it doesn’t take a genius to see that Urahara Kisuke is not ready for him. Unfortunately, he’s let himself be shaped by the corrupted world around him and still finds himself bound by the same laws that everyone else has succumbed to. It’s a shame to see such a brilliant mind governed by simple societal constructions.

And especially with such a wonderful lab at his disposal… The man is not just an architect -- he’s an artist. With access to division funds and the whole twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth sectors at his disposal, the only thing limiting the plans and construction would be Urahara’s imagination. And there are no limits to Urahara’s imagination. 

It’s become a little easier to sneak around the Twelfth Division grounds ever since the captain laid eyes on Aizen’s sword release, though it had taken a fair bit of complex planning on Aizen’s part to make the whole thing appear to happen naturally. It was well worth it for the privileges it now affords him. Unfortunately, it’s not every day that Aizen is given a chance to take advantage of such privileges. The circumstances have to be just right for him to break away and observe the sandy-haired scientist unencumbered. It is truly sublime when the stars align and Aizen can indulge in the enigmatic mind of Urahara Kisuke without having to pull any strings or tempt any fate.

As fate would have it, Gin and their captain are off at their fifth seat’s family farm watching one of the goats give birth. Several other officers are in attendance as well, leaving the offices rather quiet for this time of the day. It seems like a great chance to really focus and catch up on paperwork and that’s the excuse Aizen gives to stay behind, though he has no intention of staying in on a sublime day like today. 

Today, Urahara is returning from his trip to the Rukon districts. He’s been gone a while, collecting specimens for his new greenhouse. Aizen’s not sure what the point of it is just yet, but he can see that the palace of glass and steel is impressive in its own right. It’ll surely make for the most luscious midday escape once it’s filled with ferns and mosses and a whole mess of cycads and shrubs, glowing in the rays of sunlight and Urahara Kisuke’s creativity. 

Aizen, under cover of Kyoka Suigetsu, carefully maneuvers down the corridors of the Twelfth, counting his steps as he goes. Ten more paces and he’ll be coming up on one of Urahara’s new security measures. The captain is vigilant and focused, possibly paranoid; these cameras and sensors hardly seem like just a formality. There’s only a few scattered throughout the compound, but they track reiatsu and record motion and thermal disruptions and they’re not the easiest thing to deceive. But with years of sneaking and deception under his belt, Aizen manages to slip by without even breaking a sweat. 

From his lookout on the roof of the commissary building next door, Aizen can watch Urahara unpack his caravan and move everything into the greenhouse. Aizen is not surprised to see that he not only supervises, but actively participates in the process. He moves dollies of boxes with soil samples and pressed plants into the building right alongside his unseated officers, sweating under the afternoon sun like everyone else. They are no more than lab technicians, sets of willing hands, but he speaks to them with great respect. It’s necessary when they’re doing his bidding all crammed into tight spaces trying to connect water filtration systems to irrigation hoses and stinging their fingers running electricity through lighting cycles. 

When they finally leave, covered in dirt and compost with a few soaked knees and leaf litter in their hair, their faces are inscrutable. One squad member is having a moderate reaction to the oils in a genus of the sumac family and still he thanks his captain, smiling as he scratches incessantly at the rash spreading up his arm. Aizen, appearing as no more than a stack of crates or another helpless palm, moves closer to watch as Urahara now works alone, putting his finishing touches on the collection. 

It’s magnificent up close -- too many shades of green to count; flowers and ferns and fronds, all methodically arranged by their taxonomic classification to form a beautiful, blooming tableau. Nonvascular plants are tucked against the northern wall, small but insidious and requiring the most elaborate hydration system. There’s another wall reserved for the scant selection of gymnosperms while the representative angiosperms dominate the rest of the space. The area beneath the tables is even put to use, housing heavy glass tanks that hold a litany of aquatic plants. It’s a verdant labyrinth that Urahara already knows by heart, moving confidently from one family to the next, placing handwritten identification cards besides each exemplary species. 

There are a few surfaces miraculously uninhabited by plants, though they are still cluttered and crowded with tools -- shears and gloves and spray bottles; microscopes and lenses and a centrifuge and pipettes of various sizes; reishi sinks, electrodes, a computer, and a colorful assortment of wires like living world Christmases. He even has a fume hood and exhaust system set up in the corner. There’s no perceivable consistency between the tools that give Aizen any indication of what Urahara is up to, leaving him to stew unhappily in uncertainty. What questions weigh on his mind; what solutions are plaguing this scientist’s thoughts? What is Urahara hoping to find among this extensive flora? 

Even though he sits motionless for almost another hour, Aizen is no closer to an answer, and neither is Urahara, apparently. All he does is write down observations for every single goddamn specimen. So much attention and so much detail is paid to these plants that Aizen can’t help but admire the man, helplessly falling further from understanding. Twelve vertebrae in Aizen’s spine crack and sigh as he straightens himself out and heads for home, no closer to knowing this man and angry that he is that much closer to desperately wanting to.

Intimacy doesn’t come easy to him. Never has, actually. Even before he had formed his own ideas and opinions so controversial that they’d warrant as much as a death sentence, he had struggled to reveal the entirety of himself to another person. Which didn’t mean so much when he was a kid -- just more time by himself on the lawn, creating his own games and rules because he had no one else to play with. But as an adult, it’s one step removed and even that much harder to find. Physicality dilutes it; touching and holding and sex bury it under a distracting layer of soft, tantalizing skin and warm breaths. 

That particular flavor of intimacy does come a little bit easier to Aizen, but it’s agonizing how little it does to quell this insatiable need to know and in return, be known. Truly insatiable, since it’ll never happen to him. When he was young, Aizen didn’t see it. But now, with time and experience and this transcendental perception, Aizen is aware how different he is. How advanced and destined and lonely he is. How far behind he is and also how far ahead he sees. The distance between him and everybody around him is too great for him _not_ to see.

Everyone else will see it, too, one day. They’ll realize how wrong they were, all along. They’ll see it, even if he has to be the one to show them. He’ll direct a dinner show and write a soundtrack and everything; he’ll be sure to make it a magnificent production. One they can’t miss, one they will have no choice but to watch with rapt attention. 

Aizen’s own attention is diverted from his musings by two resonating reiatsus and their respective figures just ahead, hanging upside down about fifteen feet of the ground outside the eastern gate to the Fifth Division. He can see Gin waving at him.

“Soooooosuke!” “Aiiiiiiiiizen-fukutaichou!” They call out to him in unison and Aizen is pleasantly surprised to see how well Gin has ingratiated himself with their captain.

“Ichimaru-kun, Hirako-taichou. What are you doing out here lurking in such an uncouth manner?”

“Lurking? We’re doing no such thing,” Shinji insists. “We just got back from Tanaka-san’s farm and I wanted to make sure you hadn’t run amok with my men before I head out for the evening.”

“Of course not, captain,” Aizen replies with a tone of deferential humor. “I prefer to save my insurgencies for the cover of night, though I can be sure to have the division in flames by the time you return.”

It’s harmless, if a bit tasteless, and while it’s exactly what a teasing subordinate might say to their superior, Shinji’s eyes narrow. Aizen feigns bemusement. “Where ya been, Sosuke?” 

Of course there’s an excuse already waiting on his tongue, one that Shinji accepts easily enough since he doesn’t have time to deal with whatever happens if he doesn’t. But he is sure to flash that critical eye at his lieutenant before gracefully leaning back into his natural orientation. 

“Finish the day’s reports,” he instructs with a hint of spite. “Don’t forget the monthly insurance claims. And make sure the grant requests get submitted by tonight. If next quarter rolls around and we don’t have enough funds to get those upgrades to the barracks done, so help me god, I’ll kick your ass to the Sokyoku and back.” 

“Yes, sir.”

“Oh, and Sosuke,” he lilts, his voice caught on something and stretching out thin and high down the corridor as he walks away. “Any hint of insubordination and you’ll wish you never crawled out your momma all those decades ago.”

“Yes, sir,” Aizen replies obediently. 

“Gin-kun, be good,” is the last thing Shinji says before disappearing down the street with adorable urgency. 

Clearly Aizen isn’t the only one pleased with Urahara’s return. With the captain back on division grounds, the brunt of responsibility no longer rests squarely on Hiyori’s sharp little shoulders, meaning she’s free to cavort around the Sereitei with Shinji tonight, getting into who knows what sort of mischief. The rapport between his captain and Hiyori is always chaotic, full of energy and adoration, and after a few weeks apart, Aizen is sympathetic to whoever comes in between their bickering tonight. Their particular brand of intimacy is annoying and abrasive, a little abusive, but it is undeniable. When Hiyori calls him a spineless worm, it’s from the bottom of her heart.

“Bye-bye, captain!” Gin calls down the corridor after him, waving. 

Aizen tilts his head back and looks up at his third seat. “How was the farm?” he asks.

“It smelled,” Gin replies, jumping up (down?) and flipping elegantly back onto the pavement, right side up. “But it’s a nice place. Hey, did you know Tanaka-san has peacocks?”

“I did not. What’s the point of it?” Aizen asks as he pushes open the heavy gate to the division grounds.

“Dunno. But it was cool -- I’d never seen one in person before. Never seen a goat give birth either. You shoulda come along, Aizen-san.”

“Next time,” he says without making it sound like a promise or anything. The doors slam shut behind them and a cascade of clicking locks runs down the length of the hinges.

“Tahw did uoy od lla yad?” 

“I was working, of course” Aizen answers, unfazed by Gin’s sudden inverted speech. After decades of exposure, he’s got an ear for the reverse, though Gin’s tongue is a little more clumsy with the unnatural sounds than Shinji’s is. “Seems like it was a productive afternoon for you.”

“Yeah, Shinji taught me how to talk backwards while we waited for Sen to dilate. It’s harder than I originally thought,” Gin admits. 

“But once you learn the trick,” Aizen begins, quickly shaking the dust out of the backwards corner of his brain, “s’it drah ot tegrof.” 

Gin is appropriately amused. “Looc,” he grins. 

“What are you doing now?” Aizen asks, returning to the right order of vowels and consonants as they head off towards the interior of the division.

“I need to file something at the office and sign out, but then I don’t have any plans,” Gin answers. “I’m not on duty tonight either... Is there something else ya need from me, Aizen-san?”

After a moment, Aizen shakes his head. “Everything else was taken care of earlier.” There truly is no other work for Gin to do, but Aizen is tempted to fabricate some menial task for him on the spot, if only to see what the boy does. Gin has the ability and the capacity to either accept or deny an assignment in this moment, and while Aizen would typically love the opportunity to overthink his response, he figures he can afford to let him go tonight. 

“You sure busted your butt this morning, huh, Aizen-san?” Gin teases. “Are you gonna tell me where ya really ran off to?”

“Nope,” Aizen refuses with a smile Gin can’t see from where he’s standing, knowing that the kid doesn’t need any more than that. While Gin shows great initiative and potential in the eyes of the Gotei, the patience he exhibits behind the scenes is what is truly exemplary. Even though he’s constantly seeking out something to do, working or adventuring, he has no problem sitting back and waiting for Aizen to put him to good use. Every now and again he will test the waters -- like he did just now -- to check and see if Aizen is ready for him, reminding him that he is eager but not anxious to make his first move. 

He probably knows that Aizen is still getting a good read on him, trying to decide how to work him to his own advantage. Usually the process of identifying and cataloguing people’s intentions, motivations, and resentments only takes Aizen a few seconds; that stuff is as plain as pen on parchment. The revelations are often simple, rendering the people useable or disposable -- pawns he can sacrifice or leave in a ram. But since Gin has kept his cards close to his chest and played them so methodically from his hand, Aizen looks at him and figures him for a knight: the most defining, unpredictable piece in a chess set. 

Chess pieces, however, never turn on their handlers. They are dutiful players in a calm game of domination and strategy, staunchly obedient and helpless to the push and pull of a master’s mind. Gin made it clear years ago that he is here for the long haul, but only as long as Aizen’s interests can keep up with his own. Killing the former third seat was a calculated opening move, and while it was conspicuously bold and childishly simple, it established just who Ichimaru Gin was and would be to Aizen: loyal but always unpredictable, playing a game of his own devising. There’s something about him that Aizen knows he must be wary of. 

If you play with a snake, you’re bound to get bit. 

“You’re always sneaking off when you think no one’s looking,” Gin says, matching Aizen’s teasing tone and making it clear he knows that he has a secret, even if he doesn’t know what it is yet. “You know, it’s probably a good thing the captain don’t like ya all that much.” 

“I was thinking the same thing,” Aizen replies. After all, the kid had seen right through his lie to Hirako. If his captain paid even a fraction of the attention that Gin pays him, he might be in trouble. 

“You ever been to the botanical gardens out at the Tsunayashiro place?” Gin asks after enough time has passed that the subject can be changed without much struggle. 

“Once, yes,” Aizen answers. “It’s quite nice in the fall.”

“I figured; it’s on a noble’s estate. Ain’t everything out there nice?”

“Well, having money doesn’t always mean you have taste, but at least Tsunayashiro Ahito takes his botany seriously.” Certain thoughts lurch through his brain as he comments on the noble’s horticultural hobbies and he’s greeted internally by the sight of Urahara Kisuke crouched over his new angelica buds, noting the soil acidity and hydration. Another man who takes his botany seriously. “They say he employs a staff of almost fifty to maintain it all. The property has over two hundred acres of outdoor plots, as well as half a dozen greenhouses.” 

“Didn’t they just build one of those over at the Twelfth?” Gin asks, remembering the construction that was going on last time he stopped by the division. The amount of time he spends lurking through the grounds of the Twelfth pales in comparison to Aizen, but it’s not like the surgical steel and glass castle is all that hard to miss. The yawning dome of windowpanes only magnifies the allure of the R&D division with all its laboratories and collections, all the exciting and taboo knowledge that it has stashed away.

“They did,” Aizen confirms. “I believe Urahara Kisuke intends to fill it with species that are endemic to the Rukongai, but for what purpose I’m not entirely sure. I hear he returned from his trip to the outer districts today, actually.” 

“Is that so?” Gin hums. “So what was your favorite part?” 

Holding a conversation with Gin is always an exercise in attention. If Aizen drifts off for even a second, he’ll risk missing out on some fun little tidbit of information or tasteless quip about one thing or another; if he’s not careful to follow Gin’s train of thought he could wind up lost in the rapport, on the verge of revealing something that he didn’t intend to share. Gin is one of the few people that receives his full attention. Without that, he might have fucked up, admitting that his favorite part was the sight of Urahara distractedly wiping his hands on the outside of his lab coat, staining the cheery white material with a mixture of bone meal and dirt. 

“The moss garden was impeccably manicured,” Aizen says quickly, pistons firing in his mind to bring him back to the botanical gardens instead of the greenhouse from this afternoon. There’s no emotion attached to the observation: it’s an objective assessment of the species richness and arrangement. “The layout of the boulders and statues is inspired, honestly, centered around a pond with these two little landmasses in it. They have a tea house right on the edge of the water.”

“That’s real nice, Aizen-san. Sounds right up your alley.”

A few autumn leaves crunch under their feet as they come up on the main offices and the large proud maples that surround them. As seated officers, Aizen and Gin spend most of their days in these halls, making themselves cozy second homes among directories and records and the hurried sound of intern footsteps down the halls. The maroon ink stain of clouds has blotted out whatever spectacle the setting sun had decided to put on tonight, leaving the buildings feeling cool and empty from the outside. A pair of unseated division members are carrying casks of oil around to refill the lamps on the exterior walls of the division treasury offices. The pairs don’t notice each other, too wrapped up in their own interactions to bother brokering any others.

Inside, the chair at Aizen’s desk eagerly awaits him, turned outward in an invitation to return to the reality of his position. Hours had passed since he first walked away from the mess of paperwork, originally intending to slip away for only a moment, a quick divisional dalliance. It turned into a much longer endeavor and now the neglected assignments seem even more imposing and arduous. The ink pad he left exposed on the desk has had all afternoon to dry itself out and he has to take the time to replenish it before he can finish stamping all of the documents.

It’s monotonous, one division seal rubber-stamped on the lower left corner of each paper, notarized and folded, one after another. Steady work like this allows his mind to wander into the doldrums, a place Aizen prefers to only visit. If he spends too much time digging through his subconscious, he begins to feel like it’s the only place he belongs and he draws in further, deepening his own isolation. A separate world unfolds in the chasm of his mind that he gets lost in, overwhelmed by possibilities of a world governed by honest and true power. Fearful power. Power wasted on filing paperwork, of all things. 

He’s not so deep in his head that he doesn’t hear Gin knock and come into the room, telling Aizen that if he keeps frowning like that his face will get stuck, but the quip does pull him back to the surface. For a moment, he almost forgot that Gin was down the hall doing his own work, whistling some bittersweet tune to himself. 

“You said I could go,” Gin says, “so I’m gonna go now, Aizen-san.”

“Of course,” Aizen waves him out of the doorway, bidding him goodnight. Gin leaves, and just like that, Aizen is alone again.


	7. Graduation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> back to ginran

Five years means nothing to a shinigami. Time is essentially unlimited and unhindered and it is so incredibly easy for one moment to become indiscernible from the next in the endless expanse of their existence. One year, five years, ten or twenty thousand; they all pass at the same rate. In the five years since Rangiku has seen him, Gin hasn’t changed in the slightest. 

“So you’re finally a shinigami now,” he says. 

“Of course!” She’s proud, head held high, a big old smile on her face. The Academy looks good on her. “I wasn’t going to let you leave me behind.” _Again,_ she thinks, though there’s no bitterness in the sentiment. 

They are finally together, wearing the same black uniforms that denote them as equals. The shihakushos aren’t really meant for children, even ones as well-endowed as Rangiku, and they both sort of float among the folds of the heavy black fabric. The surrounding sea of ebony ebbs and flows calmly around them, but the air still vibrates with a soft thrum of excitement as the graduates grow restless. They’re so close they can taste it: blood and steel and the tenuous glory of a shinigami.

“’Bout time,” he grins. “I was getting tired of waiting for ya.”

“I never asked you to wait for me, idiot. Not everyone can be a genius.” 

One year. That was all it took for Gin to graduate. They hailed him as a child prodigy, a genius. Word of the _Hyapponzashi_’s ascent through the ranks made it back to Shino’o Academy, and Rangiku beamed for her friend each time she heard him mentioned. _Did you hear that hundred-sword kid is a third seat already?_ She smiled, proud and excited and itching to be at his side once again, despite the fact that he’s the one who left her behind in the first place. That’s just who he is and she’s learning to not hold it against him. 

“Come with me.” Gin’s fingers are cold as they wrap around her hand. Tugging lightly, he pulls her away from the group of students she has been orbiting around. Maybe they’re her friends; he doesn’t care to meet them. 

“Wait, Gin! Where are we going? The ceremony isn’t over yet,” Rangiku protests half-heartedly. Unfortunately, this is merely a well-needed reprieve for the graduating class and all other attendees as they prepare for more honors and awards and speeches. The instructors warned them this would be an all-day affair, and Rangiku planned accordingly, stuffing some snacks up her sleeves in case she gets peckish. Maybe she’ll offer to share the little cakes with Gin.

“Hey, Rangiku -- you trust me right?” It’s been years since Rangiku has seen that grin and all she can do is nod and squeeze his hand. “Don’t worry, they won’t notice you’re gone,” he nods back towards the assembly. “It’s just a bunch of old geezers bloviating about tradition and honor for the next half hour.” The Rukongai drawl is still there, even though the words he uses now are bigger. He’ll still drop the last syllable of the word like he still can’t be bothered with it. “It’ll be a while before they announce the graduating class. We can afford to sneak away for a bit. I’ve got something I wanna show ya.” 

“Gin… I should stay.” Their pace slows then stops as she plants her feet, refusing to be dragged along any further. “All the captains are there, officers and lieutenants… Even the Kido Corps! I should be there, too. And you especially!” He is a high-ranking officer, after all. Gin merely scowls -- _how boring._ “Like I said,” Rangiku presses on, “we can’t all be geniuses. I have to make an impression on the captains somehow! I just wish these uniforms were a little more flattering… it’s doing absolutely nothing for me like this.” She tugs unhappily at the collars of her shirts, disappointed. “Oh well, I’ll make it work somehow.” With forced levity, she plasters a smile on her face and tosses her hair around suggestively and winks at Gin, who stands there with a blank face. Her grin morphs to cover a grimace. 

It hurts her to say no because she knows how rare it is for Gin to invite her along. They could have disappeared together. It kills her to say no. 

“Aw come on, you’ve never had trouble standing out before,” Gin says, matter-of-fact. It’s not a barb aimed at her vanity or anything like that. It’s just the truth, but he can still read the pursing of Rangiku’s lips after all this time and knows she’s at least partly serious. Growing up without any rules out in the rural Rukongai, he wouldn’t have taken her as the type to follow them. “Alright,” he gives in, “I’ll come and watch them say your name then.” 

The smile that breaks across her features couldn’t be more genuine. She is clearly pleased and she reaffirms her grip on his hand, taking the lead as they head back towards the group. Their timing is impeccable; no one has noticed that she had left, and she is quickly re-engulfed in the throng of graduates heading back to their seats. Gin waits until he has lost sight of her in the crowd before turning his attention towards the officers of the Gotei 13. Seated on an elevated platform in full sight of the students and faculty, some are better at hiding their boredom than others. The old man, the healer, the stuffy old noble, the lanky blond one and their adjutants are the poster children of Gotei refinement and respect. Everyone else is only slightly less presentable but they command the space they occupy nonetheless, exuding a cultivated air of power and control despite their disinterest in the current proceedings. 

Raucous laughter emanates from the dais as Gin approaches. The sneaky one in charge of the Onmitsukido is slapping that blonde scientist on the back and nearly bawling. The Twelfth division captain -- Urahara Kisuke, Gin knows that name by now, since Aizen never wants to shut up about him -- is smiling sheepishly, though there’s a mischievous glint in his eyes can Gin see from the ground level. There’s the dynamic duo, the captains of the Thirteenth and the Eighth, the former poorly shielding the latter from the view of the old man as he sneaks sips of sake from under his robe. There’s Gin’s captain, fingers hooked in that hyperactive brat’s mouth as she pulls on his hair and berates him. There’s his lieutenant, seemingly mild-mannered and embarrassed to their left. 

“Where did you run off to?” Aizen asks quietly as Gin takes his seat behind him. 

“Just out looking for mischief,” Gin answers.

“And?” The two of them watch as their captain falls from his seat, yelling at Hiyori to leave his ass alone.

“Seems like all the mischief is happening right here,” Gin mutters, watching the girl drive her foot up his captain’s backside. He leans forward conspiratorially, jokingly. “They’ll let anybody into these things, huh? So much for decorum…”

“Aw, don’t be cruel, Gin-kun,” Shinji laments from the floor before the girl delivers one swift kick between his spread legs and turns her attention towards Gin and Aizen, who purses his lips in a tight line in a calculated attempt to hide his amusement. Snaggletooth caught in a scowl, Hiyori’s heel is still planted right up Shinji’s ass, pinning him to the floor between the rows of seats. Someone clears their throat, and all of their heads turn to see the head captain with one disapproving eye cracked at them. The ceremonies must be boring even to him -- even after hundreds of years -- and he probably appreciates the rowdiness in some capacity because his reprimand ends there. 

“Hey, fox-face. You think just because they called you a genius you can say whatever you want?” Hiyori barks, letting the fifth division captain crawl his way back to his seat. She’s up in Gin’s face now, her ability to intimidate him undermined by her pigtails and her small stature and the fact that he’s completely unflappable, slick smile on his face. “You’re only a third seat -- why are you even here?” 

“I was personally invited by the Academy.”

“This would’ve been Ichimaru-kun’s graduating class, had he not completed the curriculum in only a year’s time,” Aizen offers. 

“My being here makes everybody look good,” Gin says smartly. “Especially since I know how to conduct myself in a public setting, unlike some folks…” 

“You little brat, you shouldn’t talk about your superiors like that,” Hiyori snarls, puffing up her chest and crossing her arms over it, trying to appear unfazed by his taunt.

“I hear you’re outranked by a mad scientist in kabuki face paint,” Gin points out, delighted at the anger in her face. Ever since the moment he met her, Gin has had a certain distaste for Hiyori and her childish antics. She’s ostentatiously stubborn and high-strung and even though she swings a decent sword, she has no idea how to deal with that angry energy that boils up inside her. It makes her predictable and simple-minded and it’s a bummer that such a strong woman, strong enough to join Squad Zero, had raised such a mediocre lieutenant. 

“I’ve been a lieutenant longer than he’s been a shinigami,” she counters. Gin questions the validity of that statement with an upward quick of his eyebrows. While he had never finished his matriculation at the Academy, Kurotsuchi was technically a shinigami for his entire internment in the Maggot’s Nest, which was a good few decades before he was dragged up and out by the current Twelfth Division captain. 

“As far as the Gotei is concerned, he’s only a third seat -- third seat!” Hiyori says icily. 

“Oh, then my apologies, Saganaki-fukutaichou.”

“Sa-ru-ga-ki-fukutaichou, you stupid fox.” The first reaction Gin has to her approaching blow is amusement -- her anger is predictable and pathetic because he knew she was too juvenile to rise above such a simple barb and he’s positioned himself to dodge and counterattack. Nothing serious, of course -- a good flick or a tug of her pigtail to undermine her even more -- but before he can make any sort of move, Aizen calmly reaches between them and intercepts Hiyori’s incoming fist, radiating an uncomfortably benign warmth as he does so. 

“Sarugaki-san, I believe Ichimaru-kun is merely trying to provoke you,” he says, effortlessly diffusing her blow and meeting her scowl with a conspiratorial smile. “You know how young boys can be… they don’t know any other way to show their interest in a girl, do they? No idea how to express their feelings.”

“Excuse me?” Gin and Hiyori’s voices echo one another, his confusion and her embarrassment and their indignation all mingled together. 

“Aww, Sosuke,” a long, lanky arm, accompanied by an all-too-wide grin, drapes itself over Hiyori’s shoulder and Shinji suddenly inserts himself into the conversation, “you saying Gin-kun’s sweet on this stubborn little monkey over here? I didn’t think anyone could ever fall for such an unsightly face.” Hiyori shoves him off, adding some mild curses for good measure. She tries to jab him in the eyes. 

“Congratulations, Gin-kun! You two would make a lovely couple,” he continues in between dodging blows. “God, the kids they’d raise!” Shinji laughs to Aizen and smirks to Gin, enjoying this. Gin scowls. “Little hellions, I’d bet -- with some _killer_ smiles and a mean left hook. Please tell me I can be their godfather.”

Hiyori would rather leave her children in the care of wild monkeys than with Shinji, so she staunchly refuses and punches him in the face. “As if!”

Noticing the commotion between his lieutenant and the others, Urahara approaches the crew, side-stepping the snoozing captain of the eleventh sprawled out across the benches. 

“Come on now, I think Hiyori-san is years away from a commitment like that. It’d be best not to spoil any notions she might have of it in the future.” So sensible, that Twelfth Division captain. Urahara Kisuke. Gin smiles knowing how Aizen feels about that man, how easily he gets under his skin. That innocuous comment probably has him wound up for no good reason. Personally, Gin doesn’t mind the guy all that much.

“Yeah,” Gin says, “I like weddings as much as the next guy, but I ain’t ready to plan my own.”

“It’s been years since I’ve been to a wedding,” Shinji laments.

“Hey, Ukitake-san, isn’t your third seat getting married soon?” Urahara asks, an expert in redirection. 

“Yes,” the man answers with a gentle smile that would make you forget he’s one of the original Gotei captains, “next March.” He waves away the celebratory sip of sake that Kyoraku offers him.

“Yeah, to my cousin!” the lieutenant from the Third adds and the rest is history. Conversations march on and no one thinks about Gin and Hiyori again, the jokes lost to the pomp and circumstance of the graduation ceremony. Only when the head captain clears his throat, somehow louder than all their cavorting, do the captains of the Gotei 13 notice the proceedings below them. The headmaster takes his place at the podium and resumes speaking, his voice light and relieved now that they are finally conferring honors and degrees and shuffling the next generation of soldiers off to the front lines. 

When they call Rangiku’s name and she stands with the rest of the graduates, Gin keeps his face schooled in bored submission. Certain that no one can hear him amongst the crowd, he is sure to clap harder for her than he does for everybody else. 

His best friend just graduated from the Academy. In the top fifty percent too. All by herself. If he wasn’t so sure she’s already in the process of sniffing out a suitable party for the night, he’d drop by and see her again. Five minutes after five years is not enough -- he needs to know what she’s been up to. Needs to hear her laugh and listen to her talk and tell her about everything she missed out on in the past five years. Maybe he can convince her to ditch the graduation parties and spend the night celebrating with him instead. 

No one in the Gotei would miss him. The bars tonight will be packed; the streets will be alive with people. Shinji already has plans to go drinking with Love and not surprisingly, Hiyori has gone ahead and invited herself. The body builder and his lieutenant are tagging along and since there’s alcohol involved, Kyoraku is going, too. Even Kiganjo is planning on joining them, which will surely make for an interesting night out. Gin would look forward to hearing the stories from his lieutenant in the morning if his lieutenant wasn’t currently leading the way back to the division, pretending to be too tired to go drinking and too tired to notice the chary way Gin drags his feet as he follows along.

“Say, Aizen-san,” he says once they clear the Academy crowds, “why’d you have to go and say those things earlier?” It’s still weighing on him even though everyone else already forgot. “That ain’t like you.”

“I just wanted to see your reaction,” Aizen admits. “I was curious what you’d do. You’re a very interesting child, Gin, yet you react like any other boy when he’s accused of having a crush. There is someone you are interested in, isn’t there? But it certainly isn’t Sarugaki…”

“No offense, Aizen-san,” Gin says, sounding kind of exhausted, “but what do you know? All these years with you, and I never seen you go on a date or nothing; never even seen you talk to a man or woman in that way...”

“I was once engaged, you know.”

“No kidding.” Gin whistles. It comes as a real surprise. It reminds Gin how complex and unpredictable this man is. “Doesn’t make you an expert though.” 

“No, it does not,” Aizen agrees.

“So what happened to them?” Gin asks, unable to resist that itch of curiosity. He’d love to meet the person that was good enough to marry Aizen Sosuke. 

“She died.” 

“Oh.” The flame of Gin’s curiosity is snuffed out and he doesn’t ask any more questions or offer any condolences. Sincerity is not his strong suit, and something about the look on Aizen’s face tells him it might not have been natural. After all, he firmly believes that everything this man does is for some higher purpose. It’s always just another calculated component in some grand plan that Gin has only an inkling of.

“She wasn’t particularly talented as a shinigami, but she was part of a branch family under the Four Noble Houses. The arrangement would’ve been good for us both -- her, marrying a lieutenant; me, married into the Tsunayashiro family.” Yup, always some ulterior motive, Gin thinks. He’s surprised to hear Aizen sound almost mournful when he adds, “Unfortunately, she got sick -- an aggressive cancer that ate away at her intestinal lining. It was hard for us. She passed away almost ten years ago.”

“The Tsunayashiro family, huh?” Gin acts impressed even though he really knows nothing of Sereitei genealogy. A Noble house is a Noble House, throwing away more wealth in a week than Gin has seen in his entire life. “You got expensive taste, Aizen-san.” 

It’s almost comforting to hear Aizen chuckle in response. “I suppose I do,” he answers, more aligned with the man that Gin has come to know these past five years. “In all things -- art, literature, food and drink, company -- there is simply no substitute for quality.” 

“Ah, I’m jealous of that mentality,” Gin exclaims. “I never had a chance to care about quality. I’d take whatever I could get my hands on. Still will, if we’re being honest.” 

Aizen laughs to himself again, amused by the melancholic honesty of his third seat. “Well, will you allow me to treat you to dinner then? Someplace nice? We can say we’re celebrating your graduation.”

“A little late for that, Aizen-san,” Gin chides. He ate his celebratory dinner years ago and it was no more than a piece of fruit in the Fifth Division gardens. “But I’ll never say no to a free meal. Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah so have this half-baked headcanon i needed to get off my chest where aizen got engaged out of some contrived sense of societal obligation; a marriage of convenience to keep up appearances or whatever. was he involved in her death? who knows.


	8. Filth

The next time the old friends meet, Rangiku has decided on and been inducted into her new division. The Thirteenth, which makes Gin happy; the last thing he wanted was for her to try and follow him into the Fifth. The wise, sickly captain is kind and warm-hearted, a little too soft for Gin’s own liking these days, but he knows Ukitake will protect her -- he’s always has a soft spot for kids. And with a seat so low, she will not face any real danger for a while anyway. She’ll stay close to home, futzing around the division until she is trusted enough to move up the ranks. 

Today, the office at the Fifth is quiet and stuffy and too formal, and Gin finds himself in need of a break. Both his captain and lieutenant are absent and no one else is bold enough to say anything to him, so he slips out the front entrance and into the late afternoon glaze of the Sereitei. 

When he finally comes across her, his feet are aching. She’s stealthy, having found the most ideal corner of the barracks to seclude herself and slack off in, and if it weren’t for that shimmering reiatsu of hers, he might not have ever found her. Instead of pushing the dirt around the street like it’s meant to, the bamboo broom is serving as a shabby, incredibly unbalanced kendo sword for Rangiku while she practices her footwork. She’s not half bad; she even senses someone on the rooftop and turns just in time to see a flash of silver and black land at her side.

“Working hard, I see.” 

“Gin! I had a feeling that was you.” Even though she seems pleasantly surprised by her new guest, the broom comes down swiftly and points at him accusatorily. “What are you doing over here?”

“Came by to check up on my favorite rookie shinigami. Really putting you to work over here, huh?” Gin pushes the grimy broom away with a fingertip, snickering. The rest of her week will probably involve more of the same; shadowing the higher seats, delivering messages across the Sereitei, organizing paperwork and scrubbing windows. She might even find herself on kitchen duty and Gin wishes he could sneak into the cafeteria to see that. She was such a poor cook in Rukongai, but then again, they didn’t have much to work with back in those days.

Pouting, Rangiku claims it is a bigger drag than she expected. “Hey, Gin, _sempai_,” she sings teasingly, “how long will they have me doing chores and stuff? It’s so boring. I wanna go on a mission already.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Gin answers haughtily. “I started out as a sixth seat, remember?” And after a week he was third seat, Aizen’s new shadow. “I got to skip out on most of the menial work.” 

“Oh, yeah. I forgot about that!” Rangiku says exasperatedly. “You’re lucky you’re a genius.” She flinches, muttering, “Ow,” when Gin reaches out and flicks her on the forehead.

“Quit calling me that,” he chides. “Besides, the work is boring now, too. They make me do paperwork and other lame shit. I’ve been in the office all day; this is my first time outside.” 

“But still, Gin… third seat after such a short time? I didn’t know you were so strong.” 

That’s a lie, because how could she not know? How could she not notice it when he was right beside her the whole time, just barely keeping his thundering reiatsu in check, outrunning her in every footrace, outsmarting her in every game? When they fought, he didn’t allow either of them to hold back, and he never just let her win. She always had to earn it, and for that, she’s thankful. She fiddles with the broom in her hands, absentmindedly raking the same few tiles over and over with the coarse bristles.

“You look like you could use a break,” Gin says. “Come with me?”

This time, Rangiku agrees.

***

“Hmm... should be right around... here!” Gin is triumphant as he knocks on the wall and even Rangiku can hear the hollow rapping of his knuckles against the surface. It’s a false wall — a door. Gin’s slender fingers run along a seam that Rangiku can’t discern but knows is there; there’s a soft gnash of grinding stone and the dark, secret passage opens up for them. “Hurry up,” Gin says, pushing Rangiku headfirst into the stairwell that has presented itself.

“What is this?” She asks in a quiet voice once she reaches the bottom of the steps. It feels like a place one should whisper in — empty, dimly lit, with wet stone that echoes down the passage and a perpetual chill that comes from being underground. And it kind of stinks. 

“What’s it look like?” Gin shouts down to her, making sure to close the door behind them. He leaps down the steps and is at her side in a second. “It’s the sewer.”

Rangiku gags. “Why’d you bring me here, of all places?”

“What happened to your sense of adventure?” Gin teases. “These passages go all over the Sereitei. I found blueprints when I was rooting through the offices back at the Fifth. One of my more interesting finds.” It almost sounds like he’s boasting as he turns on his heel and starts to set a course. After a few deep breaths, the smell ceases to bother them. 

“So where are you taking me?” Rangiku asks as she skirts a puddle with her nose wrinkled in suspicion. 

“Dunno. I only know the routes directly under the Fifth... I got no idea where we are right now.”

“Gin!”

“Aw come on, Rangiku. It’ll be fun,” Gin insists, his smile devious. “Let’s see where we end up.”

“Spending an afternoon in the sewers is fun for you?” Rangiku balks, but keeps up her pace alongside her friend. “God, you weren’t kidding; paperwork must be super boring. I feel bad for you.” She laughs, and Gin smiles at the sound. 

“You so do not,” he says. “You’ll see; your work is easier to slack off on than mine. And soon you’ll start heading to the Rukongai and the living world. That’s where it gets good. Now, left or right?”

She picks left. At the next intersection, Gin chooses the middle path. Then she takes them right and he goes right again. They cross a bridge over the drainage and then hang a left. 

“Your captain is sick, ya know.” 

Gin kicks a broken piece of mortar into the murky water running alongside them.

“I know.” There’s a trace of sadness in Rangiku’s voice, even though she’s been under Ukitake’s command for less than two weeks. She’s always had a warm heart, and he’s always been quite affable; people can’t help but be drawn to him. Using a word he learned from Aizen, Gin considers the older soft-spoken man to be somewhat of an antithesis for him. Ukitake soothes, Gin unsettles; Jūshiro comforts, Ichimaru provokes. Even so, a part of Gin can’t help but respect him. 

“I hear it’s his lungs. One time, I saw him coughing up blood. I wonder how long he’s got,” Gin muses. 

“I don’t want to think about that, Gin. I like him. He’s really nice.” 

“I know.” He retracts his icy tone, softens it for Rangiku’s sake. “I like him, too.” As much as Gin can like a person, at least. The few short years he’s spent at Aizen’s side have hardened him; his attitude towards most people has shifted to blithe indifference. If they don’t help him or hinder him, they’re useless. Meaningless. Every last one of them. 

Everyone except Rangiku. 

“What about your captain?” she asks, turning down a passage on their left. “What’s he like?”

“Hirako’s a big old fool,” Gin says, laughing to himself. Unaware of the machinations of his own lieutenant, the illegal and immoral goings-on happening right under his nose… A real fool. Gin’s alliance is definitely not with his captain, but he’s done a brilliant job of covering that fact up so far. “But he’s not bad. Likes to goof off, but he keeps the squad on their toes,” he continues. “You couldn’t tell by looking at him, but Hirako-taichou,” he’s sure to use the proper title this time, “can be really strict; getting a scolding from him is fucking scary.” 

“His hair’s prettier than mine,” Rangiku pouts. 

“No one’s prettier than you, Rangiku.” Gin scrubs the top of her head with his knuckles, mussing her hair on purpose. He deflects before she can retaliate with a sharp jab of her elbow, “What do you say we check it out up top?” He points to a ladder on the other side of the waterway, then uses shunpo to easily traverse the distance. Rangiku is less successful and falters in her footing, winding up with a sewage-soaked tabi. Gin can’t help but laugh at her. 

“Shut up! I haven’t perfected the flash step yet.”

“Obviously. I can try and help you with that if you want sometime. It’s too late now though... you’re just gonna have to stink it up the rest of the day.” She growls at him to shut up and aims a smelly kick at his shin, which he easily dodges. “Come on, let’s see where we are.” 

Gin climbs up first, opening his senses to try and detect anything that may be going on above him. When he feels nothing amiss, he motions for Rangiku to join him at the top of the ladder and pops open the tile just a crack. 

“Oh wow! Look at that!” Rangiku marvels, wonder in her voice and her eyes. “You drag me through the sewers -- ruin one of my socks -- just to show me an empty street? How thoughtful.” Her whisper-hiss is no more than a tease. Gin doesn’t respond, not right away. Even though his legs are straining on the ladder, uncomfortably trying to accommodate himself and Rangiku on the rungs, he’s distracted by having her so close again. Her back is pressed to his chest, her hair in his face, and only in these close quarters does he realize how much he truly missed his friend the past five years. She still smells the same. 

“Hey, that’s just part of the adventure, right?” He whispers back. The street they’ve arrived at may be empty, but he doesn’t want to attract any unnecessary attention. “I think we might have doubled back into the Thirteenth... Wanna try again?” 

It’s hard to tell how much time they spend wandering around underground, chasing each other down in the dank corridors, but eventually they resurface, needing fresh air. The next place they wind up is a little more interesting -- they’re in a pantry of a kitchen and after some minor investigation they realize they’re right in the heart of the Eleventh Division. All of the packaging, the bags of rice and flour and sugar, the jars of preserves and pickled goods are stamped with the division number, and the intruders share a look and an excited shiver at the thought of being caught raiding the stores by one of the soldiers; Gin honestly wouldn’t mind fighting one, but he’s left his zanpakuto back in his quarters and the Eleventh members are always armed. 

The pockets of Gin’s shihakusho are stuffed with rice crackers and fruit, and Rangiku is struggling to open a giant jar of some bright red preserves -- “I only want a taste, Gin!” -- when they hear the unmistakable whooping and wailing of hungry warriors. 

“Uh-oh,” Gin grins, “looks like we’ll have to come back for free samples some other time,” and the doorknob rattles. In an instant, he’s kicked the stone tile back into place and grabbed the back of Rangiku’s shirt, telling her to get ready for their shunpo lesson since there’s no time like the present. 

“What -- what the hell do you think you’re doing in here!?” 

Gin maneuvers the two of them through the doorway in a flurry of black footsteps, leaving the on-duty chef with a crick in his neck and a severely rolled ankle as he tries to follow their movements through the kitchen. Out in the dining hall, they come face-to-battered face with a squad of division members, all equally confused by the two kids’ presence. Several are sporting black eyes and dried blood under their noses, and it’s clear they’re fresh from sparring, adrenaline still coursing through their veins but not quite sure where to go.

There are some curses and some angry questions, a cacophony of voices still wondering what the hell they think they’re doing here, but Gin doesn’t feel like explaining. He gives Rangiku a gentle shove to get her going and then takes off, stepping lightly over the tables and chairs and exiting through the main door in a matter of frenzied seconds. Rangiku is quick to follow, and even though she has no idea how Gin knows his way around, she follows him confidently, letting him guide them out of the division in a handful of flash steps. 

“Do you have to be heading back soon?” Gin asks once they’ve found a place off the beaten trail to laugh and catch their breaths. After a half-second of consideration and a glance up at the sun slipping slowly towards the horizon, Rangiku shakes her head. With her blessing, they wander until they come upon an idyllic spot, a small grassy hill with a copse of young maple trees near the eastern market square. They sit beneath the branches and share their spoils, happily shirking their duties for the rest of the afternoon and embracing perhaps one of the most carefree moments they’ve had in their entire shared childhood. 

The rice crackers are long gone by the time the sun dips low enough to paint a thin golden outline around each cloud in the purple and amber sky. It’s a beautiful evening, and Gin takes his time getting back to the Fifth. He decides to follow Rangiku all the way back to her division, happy to see that she hasn’t lost her edge as she strides purposefully through the stone streets. She always had a great sense of direction, even if she didn’t think so. 

“Really, Gin, you don’t need to follow me back,” she protests. “I know the way; I don’t need your protection anymore.” 

“How do you know I’m not the one that wants protecting, hmm?” Gin asks with a teasing lilt. He wonders if she remembers their first meeting as clearly as he does. “Maybe I feel safer around you.”  
They reach the main gates of the Thirteenth Division grounds and prepare to part ways, but not before Gin brushes some crumbs from Rangiku’s cheek and chides her for her messy appearance. “Can’t let them know you were slacking off, now.”

“And what about you?” she retorts. “You’ve been gone for hours. What’s your captain going to say about that?”

“You let me worry about him,” Gin says, confident that his captain will have no idea he was even gone. As long as the work is done, Gin knows his lieutenant has no problem conjuring an illusory third seat to sit behind a desk all day for him. He nods towards the barracks behind them, just beyond the gate. “Good luck in there. Don’t work too hard, now.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem. I’m sure you’ll come and put a stop to it the second you sense me trying to get any real work done.”

“Count on it.” Gin smiles. “Bye-bye, Rangiku.”

The ambrosial color of the sky has bled into a purple stain of ink when Gin finally slips into the Fifth Division offices. The halls are quiet, only a few shinigami left stalking around with last-minute tasks. They nod, acknowledging his position and his presence, but they keep their distance. The only person to truly acknowledge him is his lieutenant, who sits prim and proper behind the simple desk, double-checking the work Gin left behind. (It’s nearly flawless, of course.)

“Welcome back, Gin,” Aizen says quietly, greeting him with a nod. “You were out for a while.” There’s a purposeful splinter in the façade and he smiles at Gin’s precociousness. “Where were you this time?”

“I finished the squad assignments and that inventory thing early,” Gin answers innocently, “and no one was around to give me another task. So I left. How they looking, by the way? ”

They’re inconsequential and Aizen speaks dismissively, dropping the papers down on the desk. “I’ve made a slight change to the third and fourth groups, but these will do just fine.” Then he levels Gin with a dry smile. “I didn’t know you were so lacking in initiative, Gin.” 

As an answer, Gin reaches into his pocket and pulls out a rather sizeable package of green tea biscuits, which he tosses onto the desk in front of Aizen. “Went out on a snack run,” he confesses with a smile. “I’m easily distracted.” He watches Aizen pick up the cookies and turn them over in his hands; he knows he sees the insignia of the Eleventh stamped on the bottom of the paper wrapping. 

“Always out looking for trouble,” Aizen sighs, not bothering to hide his amusement. “Have you eaten an honest dinner yet?” 

All Gin has in his stomach are a bunch of rice crackers and an orange, and he says so. “My fingers still smell like citrus. Here, sniff.”

Aizen waves a hand at him as he gets up from the desk, declining his offer to smell his fingers. “Come with me, Gin. There is someone I would like you to meet.”

“You got it, Aizen-san.”

No one looks twice at them as they exit the Fifth Division and head north, towards the Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Division barracks. Whether it’s because they’re all so used to seeing the two of them together, or because Aizen has cast some sort of illusory incantation over them, Gin can’t be sure. They’re talking as they walk; Gin asking questions and Aizen answering them; Aizen making smart observations and Gin making some half-assed quip about them. Their conversation couldn’t be more casual as Aizen pulls open the gate of the Ninth Division and Gin knows for sure they’re caught up in Kyoka Suigetsu’s power. 

Unnoticed, they traverse the grounds like long-familiar territory with Aizen leading and Gin blithely following, two steps behind with his arms swinging loosely at his sides. There’s some weeds growing in the cracks of the pavement and the scent of meat cooking in a kitchen somewhere. 

“Smells good,” says Gin. 

A few laughs spill over a wall to their right, squad members in the off hours that have no idea Gin and Aizen are there. It gets quieter as they keep walking, heading to a corner of the property that’s rarely used for more than storage. There’s some decommissioned target dummies under an awning, some lawn tools broken and rusted. The one street lamp has been busted out, leaving them surrounded by the darkness of the thick, unmanaged trees. The grass swishing around their ankles gives an eerie and itchy vibe to their secret assignation.

There’s a rustle of footsteps and a figure steps out from behind one of the mannequins that’s missing an arm. Calm, they seem to know exactly where they’re supposed to be. 

“Gin,” says Aizen, “this is who I wanted you to meet. Tosen Kaname. Ninth division, fifth seat.”

“A pleasure,” Gin drawls sardonically, barely bothering to bow his head in greeting.

“Likewise…” the man replies hesitantly, returning the half-hearted gesture. Moonlight reflects on the lenses of his large goggles, obscuring his eyes and preventing Gin from reading his expression clearly. The eyes are usually the most honest part of a person, traitorously open and always revealing, but with Tosen’s so thoroughly obscured, Gin has to feel him out another way. He carefully observes the way the man turns his head in their general direction, two inches too far; he can feel the gentle probing reiatsu he sends out to assess him and realizes that he will not find any truth in Tosen’s blank eyes. There’s a satisfying click of understanding as Gin recalls Aizen saying the man was a _necessary factor in the equation,_ and he smiles knowingly. 

“_This_ is the asset you spoke of?” the blind man asks incredulously. Gin’s expression collapses into a scowl. _Prick._ “Your third seat? Aizen-sama, isn’t this the boy who ruthlessly slaughtered your former subordinate without any provocation…? I cannot tolerate such senseless violence from--”

“Do you doubt my judgement?” Aizen interrupts calmly, his hands clasped behind his back.

“Of course not!” The man’s quick to backpedal, cloying supplication. “I was merely thinking of--”

“Have I ever given you a reason to doubt me, Kaname?”

“Of course not, Aizen-sama.” He even bows. 

The deference makes Gin raise an eyebrow. Never before has Aizen asked for such subservience from Gin, and the way the two of them interact and banter about leads him to believe he does not expect it either. He’s never corrected Gin’s use of titles, never given him an order outside of their division, never slammed him with his reiatsu in a punishing wave of admonition like he does to Tosen now.

“So we understand each other, yes?”

“Yes, Aizen-sama.” He’s gasping, lungs crushed under the glaring spiritual pressure. “I know such actions are necessary to achieve our goal, and so you must have your reasoning for bringing this… person into your confidence. I may not understand it, yet, but you know that I will follow you so long as the path you lead me to is just.” 

“Very good then.” 

Aizen relaxes, but there’s still a pinprick of pressure at Tosen’s throat -- a warning, a tiny reminder not to step out of line. Gin watches the sweat bead at Tosen’s brow and understands that his own relationship with Aizen is so much more abstract than this. It’s not rooted in submission or obedience or dependence. It’s built on whimsy and trickery and deception, which makes it significantly more dangerous, but infinitely more fun. The two of them enjoy playing a game that Tosen would probably never stand for. He would find the lack of rules abhorrent and unfair. Unjust. Not surprisingly, that is exactly how Aizen and Gin like to play. 

“Gentlemen,” Aizen says, reining in the last traces of reiatsu, opening his arms welcomingly, “there is much work to be done. Let us begin.”

Despite his smarts, Gin has never been one for rigid science and rules. Ethics are a bore. Morality is relative. He nods when he needs to and doesn’t bother to ask questions as Aizen details his plan and elaborates on his aspirations for the three of them. There’s a lot he wants to change about the world, wrongs he feels compelled to right. There’s some science and some technicalities, ratios and rates and results, grand experimentations that go right over Gin’s head. Aizen’s going to upset the natural order; he’s going to transcend the bounds of these three worlds. With one deceptively small, highly complex tool, he has the chance to play god, and bend the preexisting forces of nature and laws of existence to his own will. Quite a lofty goal, but if anyone can do it, it’s probably him.

There is a chance that he can accomplish all this by himself. Tosen is not a necessity. And Gin knows that neither is he. Nobody is. 

As Aizen’s diatribe continues, Gin wonders if gods ever get lonely. Why else would man have been created? It must be endless amusement -- a dogged resilience to live while simultaneously destroying everything around them. A creation that never ceases to change, evolving in the glorious wake of fear and triumph and everything in between. 

“No one is innocent, gentlemen. Not even you or I. That’s for certain. We are part of the same corrupt system that perpetuates and encourages behavior detrimental to the betterment of human existence…” he continues, and Gin fixates on the rustle of grass at his ankles, the wind toying with the thin strands of his hair. A mosquito flits around his ear, looking for a taste. 

The balance of the current world upsets Aizen, which Gin finds interesting. The guy grew up nice -- inside the Sereitei, skirting the outskirts of nobility to suck up dregs of class and money. Life was comfortable, but no opulently so. Aizen Sosuke probably never wanted for anything material. The basic luxuries -- clothes, food, company -- were always guaranteed. Life blessed him with endless opportunities for success. 

If he had woken up in the filth of the Rukongai instead, would he have felt any different? Would his ire only reach the interior of the Sereitei, or would it continue onwards, towards the realm beyond that? Would it matter to him whether he was in the first or the fiftieth district? 

Would he have been a friend to Gin in another life? 

“Kaname,” Aizen addresses his other companion with the same familiarity he uses with Gin, but it feels forced. Like it’s another tool he must employ in building the world he dreams of. _A necessary factor in the equation._ “I need you to prepare a demonstration for me. After rounds tomorrow evening, I’ll be giving Gin an introduction to the labs.”

“Yes, sir, Aizen-sama.”

“Gin, does that work for you?” He turns to his third seat with a smile. Gin’s been around long enough to know this one is genuine because it sets his teeth on edge and makes his blood thrum in his veins like adrenaline on a cliff side. 

“Course it does, Aizen-san.” He grins right back, wide and full of evil adventure. 

Tosen may have been there first, but Gin will guarantee that he is the only one there at the end.


End file.
